Whether you run a club, want to open one or have to convince a bank, you are looking for the same thing: reliable figures on the Belgian fitness market. They are scattered across press articles, annual reports, a Flemish participation monitor and a European report you have to buy. This article brings them together on one page, with sources, and is updated every year.
The most recent public count comes from La Libre (January 2026): around 870 fitness centres, of which 467 in Flanders, 229 in Wallonia and 174 in Brussels. In 2023 there were 848. The growth sits mainly with the chains; the number of independent clubs remains stable to slightly declining.
That count is conservative. It covers the classic fitness centres, but not the boutique studios (pilates, yoga, cycling, functional training), the personal training studios and the municipal sports centres with a gym floor. Include those and you comfortably pass a thousand locations. For a count of your own, the Statbel database on NACE code 93.130 (activities of fitness centres) is the best source.
Basic-Fit closed 2025 with 239 own clubs in Belgium, seven more than the year before. At group level the chain counted 2,151 clubs at the end of 2025 (1,716 run in-house and 435 franchises) and 4.82 million members in the Basic-Fit clubs, 5.8 million if you include the German subsidiary Clever Fit. Revenue rose 17% to 1.42 billion euros. Derived from those figures, an average Basic-Fit club has well over 2,800 members.
Jims, part of Colruyt Group, doubled in size at the end of 2024 through the acquisition of NRG and comes to 80 clubs. That makes Jims the clear number two, with a positioning closer to the classic club than to the budget formula of Basic-Fit.
Behind them come international franchises such as Anytime Fitness and a long tail of independent clubs, often with one or two locations and 500 to 3,000 members. That segment is precisely the heart of the Belgian market, and it is also the segment where member retention, service and secondary revenue make the difference against the budget chains.
Fitness.be, the sector federation, speaks of more than one million Belgians doing fitness. Nobody publishes an exact penetration rate for Belgium free of charge; the European report by Deloitte and EuropeActive contains country figures, but only in the paid version.
The Flemish Monitor Sport en Bewegen 2025 from Sport Vlaanderen does give a sharp picture. 81% of people in Flanders play sport every week. Fitness ranks third among all sports, with 14% of the population doing it weekly. Among adults that is 19% of men and 17% of women. 56% of all fitness activity takes place in a commercial centre; the rest happens at home, in municipal facilities or at work.
For comparison: Europe as a whole sits at a penetration of 9.3% according to EuropeActive (11% among those aged 15 and over). Belgium, judging by the Flemish figures, sits above that.
The European Health and Fitness Market Report 2026 by Deloitte and EuropeActive (2025 figures) is the reference:
Revenue is growing faster than membership. That means average revenue per member is rising, despite the growth of the budget chains. Premium formulas, personal training, group classes and secondary revenue (food, drinks, retail) pull the average up.
Three issues will set the agenda for every Belgian club operator over the next two years.
VAT. Access to fitness centres falls under the 6% rate. In November 2025 the federal government decided to raise that to 12%, first planned for 1 March 2026, then postponed after an opinion from the Council of State. At the time of writing there is no new date. Personal training and group classes without access to the gym floor stay at 21%.
Automatic renewal. Minister Beenders is preparing a law that reins in the automatic renewal of memberships: the club has to notify the member at least 15 days in advance, and cancelling has to be possible through the same channel as signing up. The law enters into force twelve months after publication in the Belgian Official Gazette, so at the earliest at the end of 2026.
Enforcement. Since 2022 the FPS Economy has inspected 51 fitness centres and found breaches at 31 of them, good for 35 warnings and 5 official reports. The classic mistakes: no correct price display, unclear notice periods and refusing cash.
The market is growing, but the growth is going to the chains. An independent club does not win on price, but it does win on three other fronts. First, member retention: every percent fewer cancellations weighs more heavily than ten new members a month. Second, revenue per member: personal training, group classes, food and drinks. Third, professionalism: correct contracts, smooth direct debit and a front desk that does not create a queue.
All three are a matter of measurement. If you do not know your cancellations per month, your visit frequency and your revenue per member, you are steering blind. That is exactly what the analytics in Club Planner were built for.
Want to know how your club scores against these figures? Request a demo and we will put your own data next to the market.
