On-Demand Delivery Platform Belgium: Quick Commerce for Antwerp & Ghent

A courier in Antwerp gets $410–$420 fine for driving the wrong van into the city centre. A rider in Ghent cannot reach a customer because the pedestrian zone blocks the road. Neither problem is about speed. Both are about knowing the city.

That is the part most delivery startups underestimate when they look at Belgium. Technology is the easy half.

Belgium's Quick Commerce Numbers Are Bigger Than People Assume

Anyone planning an on-demand delivery platform Belgium shoppers will actually use should start with the size of the prize. Belgium's quick commerce market was expected to reach US$740.2 million in 2025, growing 6.9% year on year, with a forecast of roughly US$960.9 million by 2029.

The wider picture supports it. Belgian online spending hit a record €18.3 billion in 2025, up 5.4% on 2024.

Two details rarely make it into pitch decks.

• Flanders accounted for more than 52% of national online spend in 2025, which puts Antwerp and Ghent at the centre of the map rather than Brussels.
• Congestion surcharges push pure-play last-mile costs up by as much as 12%, which is why operators keep moving toward lockers and bikes.

So is the Belgian market saturated? Not quite. It is concentrated in specific cities with specific rules, and that is a different problem from saturation.

Antwerp Runs on Cargo Bikes and Strict Zones

Antwerp set up Belgium's first Low Emission Zone in February 2017. It covers 20 km², operates 24/7 including Sundays, and fines for non-compliance run between $175 and $408.

Those rules got tighter on 1 January 2026, shifting focus from carbon to nitrogen emissions. Diesel cars at Euro 5 and petrol at Euro 2 or lower can no longer enter. From 2035, only zero-emission vehicles will be allowed in at all.

Operators have already adapted. Amazon launched an electric cargo bike fleet from its Blue Gate delivery station, replacing part of its van trips in the city centre, in a city the Copenhagenize Index ranks as the fourth most bike-friendly globally.

Any serious last-mile delivery Belgium operation in Antwerp needs vehicle type built into its routing logic, not treated as an afterthought.

Patrick Gijbels, supply chain manager at Antwerp's ZAS hospital network, made the practical case for bikes memorably, noting that "drones can't fly in strong winds, but bikes are always reliable".

Ghent Is Quietly the More Interesting Test Case

Ghent's circulation plan closed much of the centre to through traffic, which reshaped delivery entirely. The city now runs a microhub at the Ham, where PostNL transfers parcels onto six cargo bikes for final delivery.

bpost went further. It now delivers more than 1,500 parcels a day in Ghent using electric bikes and vans only.

• 82 mail carriers cover the Ghent region daily, with 44 delivering by bike and 38 using electric vans, sometimes combined with a bicycle.
• Ghent has 45 pickup points including 26 parcel lockers, roughly one every 400 metres, or a six-minute walk in urban areas.
• The city offered around $6,960 in funding to delivery companies using last-mile providers that bundle goods at the city edge.

There is real money behind this shift. EIT InnoEnergy estimated that mixed fleets of e-cargo bikes and e-vans could save urban logistics firms up to €554 million a year by 2030 while cutting last-mile emissions by as much as 80%.

Poland Is Moving on a Completely Different Track

Poland deserves its own read, because the competitive shape there is nothing like Belgium's. The market has already consolidated around large platforms rather than lockers and bikes.

• Żabka Jush is growing 50 to 60% annually, according to figures the platform released in 2026.
• Kaufland and Glovo now deliver in as little as 15 minutes across an expanding list of Polish cities.
• Lisek began piloting round-the-clock delivery in 2026, pushing quick commerce past its traditional evening peak.

Polish q-commerce has also outgrown food. Couriers there now carry electronics, flowers, cosmetics, and gifts, turning delivery apps into general retail channels rather than restaurant tools.

One regulatory point matters for founders in both countries. Wolt has warned that implementing the EU platform work directive could cost its Polish partners around half a billion złoty, which makes clean courier records a compliance issue, not just an operational one.

What the Software Actually Has to Handle

Can one platform serve Antwerp, Ghent, and Warsaw? Yes, provided vehicle rules, zone restrictions, and courier records are configurable per city rather than hard-coded for one market.

A workable on-demand delivery platform Belgium operators can run needs these pieces in place.

• Vehicle-type awareness in dispatch, so a cargo bike gets pedestrian-zone jobs while an electric van takes bulk routes outside the restricted core.
• Real-time GPS tracking, giving both the customer and the dispatcher live visibility instead of phone calls chasing a rider.
• Pickup point and locker handling, since Belgian customers increasingly choose collection over waiting at home.
• Multi-city configuration, letting Antwerp, Ghent, and Polish cities run under one admin panel with separate rules and pricing.
• Analytics dashboards, turning delivery logs into data on peak hours, failed drops, and courier performance.

Automated delivery dispatch Belgium teams rely on is what closes the gap between a booking and a completed drop, especially when zone rules change mid-route.

The Compliance Layer Founders Skip

Dependable courier software Belgium businesses use should log courier identity, vehicle class, and proof of delivery in an exportable format. Belgium made Peppol e-invoicing mandatory for all VAT payers in January 2026, and that same push toward digital records is reaching logistics.

Where Most Delivery Platforms Fall Short

Plenty of off-the-shelf delivery scripts assume a car or scooter fleet in a city with no access restrictions. That assumption breaks the moment a courier hits Antwerp's LEZ boundary or Ghent's pedestrian core.

Mobility Infotech builds white-label delivery and dispatch platforms around that reality, with branded customer and driver apps, automated dispatch, real-time GPS tracking, payment management, and an admin dashboard with analytics. Cloud or on-premise deployment is available, which matters for operators handling EU data rules.

The Bottom Line for Operators

Belgium is not a market you win on delivery speed alone. Antwerp fines the wrong van, Ghent blocks the wrong street, and both cities are tightening the rules further rather than loosening them.

Poland rewards a different strength entirely, closer to scale and assortment than to zone compliance.

Founders building an on-demand delivery platform Belgium and Poland can share should start from software that treats city rules as settings, not obstacles. That is the case Mobility Infotech puts to operators choosing between a long custom build and a faster, tested launch.

The cities already decided how deliveries will work. The platform just has to keep up.