BeST Address, the Belgian address register, explained
Belgium has one official list of addresses, but three regions build it. Here is what BeST Address contains, who keeps it up to date and how to use it.
What BeST Address is
BeST stands for Belgian Streets and Addresses. It is the national reference of every address in the country, published by BOSA, the Federal Public Service Policy and Support.
BOSA does not create addresses. Each region keeps its own register, and BeST brings the three together in one format, with the same fields and the same kind of identifiers.
Three regions, three registers
- Flanders: the Flemish address register (Adressenregister), which took over from CRAB.
- Wallonia: ICAR, the Walloon central register of addresses and streets.
- Brussels: the address data of UrbIS, the geographic reference of the Brussels-Capital Region.
Street names and house numbers are decided by the municipalities. The regional registers record those decisions, and BeST republishes them for the whole country.
What an address record holds
Only a current address is a real door today. Retired addresses, and some that are only planned, stay in the files, so filter on the status.
| Field | Example |
|---|---|
| Street name, in each official language | Rue de la Loi / Wetstraat |
| House number | 16 |
| Box number | 3, as an address of its own |
| Postcode and postal locality | 1000 Bruxelles / Brussel |
| Municipality | Bruxelles / Brussel |
| Coordinates | 50.8467, 4.3499 |
| Status | current or retired |
How it is published
BOSA publishes the whole reference as open data, one file per region, and offers its hosted web services to public bodies.
For a private company, using it directly means downloading three large files, loading them, matching what people type against them, and doing it again every time the reference changes.
Using BeST in your own software
- Load the open files yourself and build the search on top of them.
- Call the service of each region, one per region, and merge the answers.
- Call an API that serves the national reference in one call, such as the Addrly Address API.
Key takeaways
- BeST Address is the official national list of Belgian addresses, published by BOSA.
- It is assembled from three regional registers: Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels.
- Only current addresses are real doors, and an identifier is unique within its region only.
Frequently asked questions
Is BeST Address free?
The data is open data published by BOSA. Hosting it, searching it and keeping it current is the work you either do yourself or buy as a service.
Does BeST include box numbers?
Yes. A box is an address of its own, attached to the house number of its building.
Is an address identifier unique in Belgium?
Only within its region. The same number can name one address in Flanders and another in Wallonia, so always keep the region with it.