4 per cent of deaths in Belgium are euthanasia cases

Belgium had a record 4,486 assisted deaths in 2025, an increase of 12.4% on the previous year, accounting for 4 per cent of all deaths in the country, with almost a quarter of all deaths not expected in the short-term.

According to the annual review released by Belgium’s ‘Federal Commission for the Control and Evaluation of Euthanasia’:

• 4,486 people ended their lives by assisted suicide or euthanasia in Belgium in 2025, which is the biggest number of Belgian assisted deaths in any single year since the practice was made legal. 
• This accounted for 4 per cent of the total 113,217 deaths that happened in Belgium in 2025, which is the highest percentage share of all deaths since the practice was made legal.
• This also represents a 1,809 per cent increase in assisted suicide or euthanasia deaths compared to the 235 deaths that occurred in the first full year that the law was in operation (2003). 
• Almost a quarter of people (24.9 per cent) who had their lives ended by euthanasia or assisted suicide were not expected to have a natural death that would occur in the short term, understood as meaning it was not expected in the coming months. In other words, they were not terminally ill.
  
• • In the past, people who have ended their lives where death was not expected in the coming months have included people with depression, PTSD and blindness.
  • The percentage of those who had their lives ended by euthanasia or assisted suicide who were not terminally ill has almost quadrupled from 6.88 per cent in 2004 to 24.9 per cent in 2025.
• In 2025, 151 people died by euthanasia or assisted suicide with ‘cognitive disorders’ or ‘psychiatric conditions’ as their underlying condition.
  
• • This has increased by 36.04 per cent since the previous year.
  • This has increased by 169.64 per cent since 2018, when there were 56 people who ended their lives with these underlying conditions.
• In 2025, 92.72 per cent of people whose underlying condition was either a cognitive disorder or a psychiatric condition who died by euthanasia or assisted suicide were not expected to die in the coming months. In other words, they were not terminally ill.
  
• • For every year since 2018, over 90 per cent of people whose underlying condition was either a cognitive disorder or a psychiatric condition who died by euthanasia or assisted suicide were not terminally ill.
• Since assisted suicide and euthanasia were legalised in Belgium, over 42,000 people have ended their lives in this manner.
• The number of people who ended their lives by euthanasia or assisted suicide in 2025 has more than doubled in the last decade.
• In the UK in 2024, if 4 per cent of deaths were assisted deaths as in Belgium, there would have been a total of 25,958 assisted deaths in that year.