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TectoScore: A Fair and Anti-Discriminatory Rental Score in Belgium

TectoScore measures only rent payment punctuality, never income, age or nationality. Discover how this score complies with Belgian anti-discrimination law and Article 22 GDPR.

Par Mervyn Jespers
TectoScore: A Fair and Anti-Discriminatory Rental Score in Belgium

TectoScore measures only one thing: has this tenant paid their rent, on the scheduled date, over time? No income, nationality, age or type of contract enters the calculation. It is precisely this strict scope that makes it a fairer tool than intuitive selection, and compliant with the Belgian anti-discrimination framework.

In a market where, according to Immoweb (2024), there are on average 34 tenant candidates for a single available property, the selection pressure is immense. It often pushes landlords towards cognitive shortcuts which, even without bad faith, constitute discrimination in legal terms.

Why is intuitive selection discriminatory by nature?

A landlord who chooses their tenant "by gut feeling" relies, consciously or not, on status signals: name, accent, family situation, type of employment contract. These signals are protected by Belgian anti-discrimination legislation.

According to Unia, the Interfederal Centre for Equal Opportunities, housing is at the top of the areas where discrimination is observed in Belgium. Real estate agencies sometimes contribute to this without even knowing it: lack of knowledge of the legislation, vague criteria in advertisements, undocumented refusals.

Belgian legislation protects tenant candidates against any distinction based on a protected criterion. Let us remember that these criteria are numerous:

  1. Nationality, so-called race, skin colour, ancestry or national or ethnic origin
  2. Age
  3. Sex, gender identity, pregnancy
  4. Current or future state of health, disability
  5. Sexual orientation
  6. Civil status, birth, social origin, wealth
  7. Religious, philosophical, political or trade union beliefs

In the Walloon Region, it is the Decree of 6 November 2008 on combating certain forms of discrimination that applies to housing, alongside federal laws. In the Brussels-Capital Region, a standardised information form strictly regulates the information that the landlord can request even before a viewing. In the Flemish Region, equivalent rules apply. As residential leases are a regionalised competence in Belgium, these provisions differ according to the region concerned, but the prohibition of discrimination is common to the entire territory.

The problem is structural: without an objective tool, the landlord has no choice but to rely on what they see, hear and feel. And that is where discrimination sets in, not through malice, but through helplessness.

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What does TectoScore measure, and what does it never measure?

TectoScore is a rental reliability score calculated exclusively from actually observed rent payments. The central question is simple: has this tenant paid their rent on the scheduled date?

Here is what TectoScore never takes into account:

  1. Income, its amount or origin
  2. Expenses, savings or overall bank balance
  3. Type of employment contract (permanent, fixed-term, self-employed, civil servant...)
  4. Age, gender or nationality
  5. Family or marital status

This strict scope is not a comfort choice: it is a design decision. Analysing income, even in a neutral way, creates indirect biases against part-time workers, self-employed people, benefit recipients or pensioners—profiles perfectly capable of paying their rent on time, but whose income appears irregular or insufficient when reading a tax assessment.

The only criterion that should matter in selecting a tenant is rental reliability, not professional status, not personal situation.

The score is presented on a scale of 0 to 100, enriched with loyalty tiers that reward the seniority of the payment history, with reinforced weighting of the most recent payments. It is expressed in accessible labels: Excellent, Very Good, Good, Average, To Improve. Data collection is carried out via three cumulative channels:

  1. Open Banking (PSD2, read-only, initiated by the tenant, revocable at any time)
  2. Bank statement import (PDF/CSV, concordance analysed by AI)
  3. Bank screenshots (also analysed by AI)

The certification level of the score—Not Verified, Basic, Verified, Certified—depends on the channels used. The score is updated monthly.

How does TectoScore comply with Article 22 of the GDPR?

Article 22 of the GDPR sets out a clear principle: every person has the right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing producing legal effects or significantly affecting them. This right is at the heart of TectoScore's design.

Concretely, at Immotecto, this translates into three non-negotiable guarantees:

  1. Right to explanation: any tenant can request explanations on the logic of the score concerning them, the nature of the data used and their impact on the result.
  2. Right to contest: if a tenant believes that their score does not faithfully reflect their actual payment behaviour, they can request its review.
  3. Human review: no selection decision can be based exclusively on TectoScore. The score is an objective benchmark among other elements of assessment; the landlord always retains their decision-making responsibility.

This last point is essential and is recalled in an anti-discrimination banner visible on the platform: TectoScore is never the sole selection criterion. The Belgian Litigation Chamber recalled in January 2026, in its decisions 06/2026 and 07/2026, that any data controller must respond to requests made under Articles 15 to 22 of the GDPR within the legal timeframes.

Moreover, the CJEU clarified in its judgment of 7 December 2023 (case C-634/21, Schufa Holding) that a score exercising a determining influence on a final decision falls under Article 22 of the GDPR, even when it is produced by a third party. That is why we have designed TectoScore as a transparent decision support tool, and not as an autonomous automated filter.

The first-time tenant variant: nobody is excluded for lack of history

A score based on payment history carries an obvious risk: excluding those who do not yet have a history. Students, young workers, people coming out of a period of cohabitation, newcomers to Belgium—these profiles are precisely those that landlords have the most difficulty assessing, and who are most often excluded without explanation.

It is for them that we have designed the first-time tenant variant of TectoScore. It allows a candidate without rental history to showcase other proofs of reliability—references, guarantors, documented behaviour—and to obtain a score adapted to their real situation, rather than a default refusal.

TectoDossier completes this approach: compiled once, at the tenant's initiative, it centralises all useful documents—identity, professional situation, references, guarantors, search criteria. Encrypted documents (AES-256). The tenant chooses, section by section, what they share via their TectoPass: the professional only sees what the tenant has agreed to transmit.

Is a factual score fairer than a paper file?

The answer is yes, and here is why.

A classic paper file is falsifiable. The concordance of documents can be analysed by AI, but no tool can guarantee the absolute authenticity of all the pieces. Conversely, a payment history collected via Open Banking (PSD2, read-only) is certified in real time by the banking connection: it reflects what actually happened, without interpretation.

But above all: a paper file invites subjective interpretations. The landlord looks at the name, address, employer's logo, the displayed income amount. They judge. And this judgment, even unconscious, can be based on protected criteria.

A factual score, on the other hand, answers a single measurable question: has this tenant honoured their payment commitments in the past? It is a legal, objective criterion directly linked to the landlord's concern. The Brussels-Capital Region itself recognises that it is legitimate to verify the ability to pay rent—the rule of three times the rent confirmed by the Council of State in March 2026 testifies to this. But this verification should focus on actual behaviour, not on a potentially falsified payslip.

Unia also points out that the housing shortage aggravates the risk of discrimination: a reduced supply allows landlords to be more selective, and this increased selectivity often occurs to the detriment of the most vulnerable profiles. In Belgium, according to Immoweb (2024), 34 candidates on average compete for a single property. In this context, having an objective and certifiable benchmark is protection for both the tenant and the landlord.

The Belgian rental market is under pressure. According to the Federia/CIB Barometer (2025), the average rent for a new lease reaches €1,346 in Brussels (+2% over one year) and €879 in Wallonia (+6.2%). At this rent level, the rule of three times the rent mechanically excludes a large proportion of legitimate candidates, which pushes some towards document falsification, and others towards outright exclusion. A tool like TectoScore does not solve the housing crisis, but it allows decisions to be made on facts rather than assumptions.

Conclusion

The perfect tenant does not exist. A landlord's realistic objective is to find the most reliable profile, and reliability is measured on observed actions, not on supposed statuses. This is what we have built with TectoScore: a score strictly limited to actual payment behaviour, transparent, explainable, contestable, and accessible at €0 for the tenant.

For professionals, consulting a TectoPass provides access in a few seconds to a certified benchmark, without conducting an investigation, without requesting additional documents, and without being exposed to an accusation of discrimination. For tenants, it is the possibility of proving their reliability on facts, regardless of their name, status or family situation.

Curious to know how this works in practice? Discover how it works or create your file from the tenants' area.

FAQ

Can TectoScore replace income verification in Belgium?

No. TectoScore is a rental reliability benchmark, not an income verification tool. It measures whether the tenant has paid their rent on time in the past, a distinct and complementary criterion. The landlord remains free to assess the entire file, including financial resources, in compliance with the legal framework applicable in their region.

Does TectoScore comply with the GDPR?

Yes. In accordance with Article 22 of the GDPR, TectoScore never constitutes the sole basis for a decision. The tenant has a right to explanation on the logic of the score, a right to contest and a possibility of human review. The legal basis for processing is based on the tenant's explicit consent, who initiates the process themselves.

What happens if a tenant has no payment history?

Immotecto offers a first-time tenant variant of TectoScore, specially designed for profiles without rental history. It allows other proofs of reliability to be showcased and to obtain an adapted score, rather than a default exclusion.

Does TectoScore take into account the type of employment contract?

Never. The type of contract—permanent, fixed-term, self-employed, retired, benefit recipient—does not enter the TectoScore calculation. Only rent payment behaviour is analysed. This avoids indirect biases that mechanically disadvantage atypical workers or people with variable incomes.

Does the landlord see the tenant's entire file?

No. Via TectoPass, the tenant chooses section by section what they share. The professional only sees what the tenant has explicitly agreed to transmit. To consult a TectoPass, the professional must create an Immotecto account at €0, which includes 10 consultations in total.

Sources

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