Best UX Design Agencies in Brussels (2026)

Introduction

Brussels has a compact but varied UX scene, and the nine agencies below cover most of it: a long-standing human-centred design consultancy, a network-owned experience agency, several app and product studios, and a handful of firms that design and build software for Belgian organisations.

The market shifted in 2025. EPAM rebranded Emakina in Belgium and the Netherlands as Empathy Lab in February, then merged the former Emakina Belgium team in Brussels with The Reference in Ghent under the same name in September. Elsewhere, much of the city’s product work comes from studios that pair UX with development, serving clients such as STIB, Belfius, JCDecaux and Interparking, as well as EU-facing organisations that need services in French, Dutch and English.

Every agency here has a Brussels office in 2026, confirmed from its own site. Several well-known Belgian UX firms work from Ghent, Antwerp or Leuven and are left out for that reason. The list is unranked, since the right partner depends on whether you need research, design, a built product, or all three.

The best UX design agencies in Brussels

1. Namahn

Independent · Saint-Josse-ten-Noode · namahn.com

Namahn describes itself as an independently owned human-centred design agency, and it is one of the few Brussels firms where research and service design lead the work. Its offer is split into insights (understanding users and system dynamics), experience design for digital products and services, systemic design for larger transformation projects, skills training, and design operations for organisations building their own design teams.

The studio is on Rue de la Limite and its team page lists nine designers. Namahn is the Belgian partner in UXalliance, an international network of user experience companies, and a member of Hybrio Design, a group of five Belgian design and engineering agencies. It suits clients who want to build in-house design capability as well as commission a project.

2. Empathy Lab by EPAM

Owned by EPAM Systems · Brussels · epam.com

Empathy Lab is the Belgian home of what used to be Emakina, one of the country’s best-known digital agencies. EPAM bought the Emakina Group in 2021, launched Empathy Lab as an AI-native agency in February 2025, and rebranded Emakina in Belgium and the Netherlands under the new name. In September 2025 the former Emakina Belgium team in Brussels merged with The Reference, the Ghent agency founded in 1993, to serve Belgian clients under one brand.

The agency combines strategy, creative, data and engineering, with offers in commerce, digital products, experience and marketing, and it can draw on EPAM’s wider engineering capacity. EPAM’s Brussels office is on Boulevard du Souverain. With teams in both cities, ask which one will lead your project.

3. Tapptic

Group company alongside ENEON · Brussels · tapptic.com

Tapptic has designed and built mobile apps and digital products since 2009. Its Brussels office on Boulevard de la Cambre sits alongside teams in Paris, Gdańsk and Villars-sur-Glâne in Switzerland, and the company presents itself as part of a group with ENEON Group, Dataveon and Idweaver.

UX and UI work covers wireframing, prototyping, user testing, interface design and design systems, usually followed by native or cross-platform development. Clients shown on its site include Ageas, TEC, TV5 Monde, UNICEF, the Opéra national de Paris and Monoprix, with case studies for FIBA, Carrefour, Euroconsumers, Veolia and the Royal Belgian Football Association.

4. Nightborn

Product studio · Brussels city centre · nightborn.com

Nightborn is a Brussels product studio working from Rue Notre Seigneur, near the Sablon. It covers the full run of product work: discovery, UX audits, UX and UI design, prototyping, motion and micro-interactions, and design systems, then web and mobile development, AI integration and DevOps.

Its client list mixes start-ups and established brands, including JCDecaux, Samsung, Century 21, Monizze, Skipr and Student.be. The studio also takes on product redesigns and projects that need “getting back on track”, which is useful for teams inheriting a struggling build.

5. Movify

Belgian digital studio · Auderghem · movify.com

Movify has been active since 2013 and runs offices in Auderghem, Antwerp and Luxembourg. It groups its work into strategy, design and technology, and its design practice now focuses on how people interact with AI-based products, backed by a partnership with Lovable and a programme of AI workshops and meetups.

Case studies on its site cover projects for Belfius, Alpha Credit, BNP, Forem, Golden Palace and Stanley/Stella. Financial services and public-sector clients make up a good share of the work, which suits organisations that need UX alongside regulated or complex back-end systems.

6. Smile Belgium

Part of Smile Group · Woluwe-Saint-Pierre · smile.eu

Smile is a digital group with an open-source background, and its Belgian team has worked in the market for more than 12 years from an office on Avenue de Broqueville, near Montgomery. Services in Brussels include strategic advice, user experience design, web and mobile application development, and open-source platforms. The group’s brands include UX-Republic, Neopixl and SensioLabs.

Its Belgian work includes continuous improvement of customer journeys in the STIB mobile app and the integration of BRUpass transport tickets into it, a B2B customer portal for Azelis rolled out in more than 100 markets, and a redesigned order platform for Renmans.

7. JEMS Benelux

Member of Jems Group · Woluwe-Saint-Lambert · jems-benelux.com

JEMS Benelux works from Boulevard Brand Whitlock, the address previously used by Anais Digital, and the old Anais Digital domain now forwards to its site. UX is one of its five areas of expertise, covering user research, design thinking, UX and UI design, prototyping and MVPs, with a second office in Bucharest.

Clients include Befimmo, Beobank, Immoweb, Interparking and Solvay. Case studies cover ONE (the Office de la Naissance et de l’Enfance), Dstny and Canal de Provence, and a 2025 article on its site walks through the My.ONE project.

8. KERN-IT

Founded in Brussels, 2012 · European Quarter · kern-it.be

KERN-IT is a small product and software studio on Rue Belliard. Its team of ten includes UX and UI designers alongside product, data and development profiles, and much of its work is SaaS platforms and business applications for Belgian and European clients.

Projects include a map application for Cushman & Wakefield, a platform for Liberation Route Europe, and work for Venn Telecom, the King Baudouin Foundation, Iriscare and Spentys. Its 2026 writing focuses on AI agents and SaaS launches, which reflects the kind of product work it takes on.

9. BeLead

Belgian web studio · Ixelles · belead.com

BeLead is a web development studio with offices on Avenue de la Couronne in Ixelles and in Nivelles. User experience (workflows, wireframes and interface design) sits alongside branding and custom web application development in its offer.

Projects on its site include the Derivatives Academy platform, an airport monitoring system, Wisdoc and LePetitLittéraire.fr, and client logos include Interparking, Nexis and CES-Silicones Europe. It suits smaller organisations that want one team to design and build a web application.

What to look for in a Brussels UX design agency

Start with language. Brussels products often need to work in French and Dutch, and EU-facing services usually add English. Ask how an agency recruits research participants in each language, whether its designers test copy and layouts in all of them, and how it handles text that runs longer in one language than another.

Decide early whether you need research, design or a built product. Namahn and Empathy Lab lead with research and strategy, while studios such as Tapptic, Nightborn, Movify and KERN-IT carry a design through to development. Design-and-build firms can move quickly from prototype to release, but check that research time is protected in the plan rather than squeezed by the build.

Ask about accessibility. The European Accessibility Act has applied to many consumer digital services since June 2025, and public-sector sites in Belgium already have accessibility duties. A good agency will explain how it tests for accessibility and which standard it works to, though your own legal team should decide what applies to your service.

Finally, ask how research and design work is shared. UX projects produce interview recordings, usability-test videos, prototypes and many rounds of screen feedback. Agencies that keep this material in one searchable place, with feedback tied to the exact screen or moment, make it easier for clients to review work and to find past findings months later.

How Fabric helps UX design teams

Fabric gives a UX team one workspace for research, design files and client feedback, with AI search across all of it. The UI and UX agency setup keeps each client’s briefs, research, prototypes and call notes together.

Research recordings are often the hardest material to reuse. Fabric transcribes uploaded audio and video, so user interviews and usability sessions become searchable, with clickable timestamps that jump to the moment a participant said something. Search works by meaning across documents, images, PDFs and those transcripts, as well as connected apps such as Google Drive and Notion.

For design exploration, Canvas is an infinite whiteboard that embeds Figma files, YouTube and Vimeo, which suits journey maps, flows and reference boards. Similar search finds related screens or visuals by composition, colour and subject.

Feedback works through sharing. Share a file or folder with the client as a commenter, and they can open the link without signing up. With annotations, they can draw on a screen design and attach a comment to the drawing, leave timestamped comments on a usability-test video, or highlight text in a PDF report. The team marks each comment completed as it is resolved, so a review round works like a checklist. Collaboration adds live cursors, threaded comments and @mentions. There is a wider comparison in the best design feedback tools.

Fabric uses AES-256 encryption, is CASA Tier 2 certified, and does not use customer data to train AI models. Team plans start at $125 a month. See plans for teams.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best UX design agency in Brussels?

There is no single answer, because it depends on the brief. For research, service design and building in-house design capability, Namahn is the specialist on this list. For apps and digital products that need to be designed and built, Tapptic, Nightborn and Movify are strong options, and Empathy Lab by EPAM suits larger programmes that need network-scale engineering.

What happened to Emakina in Brussels?

EPAM, which bought the Emakina Group in 2021, rebranded Emakina in Belgium and the Netherlands as Empathy Lab in February 2025. In September 2025 the former Emakina Belgium team in Brussels merged with The Reference in Ghent, and both now serve Belgian clients as Empathy Lab by EPAM.

What is the difference between a UX agency and a design agency?

A UX agency focuses on how digital products and services work for the people using them, through research, interaction design, prototyping and testing. A design agency usually covers a wider range of visual and brand work. For multidisciplinary studios, see the best design agencies in Brussels.

Can Brussels UX agencies run research in French and Dutch?

Many can, but it varies by team. Ask who will moderate sessions in each language and how participants will be recruited before agreeing a research plan.

Do these agencies build the product as well as design it?

Several do. Tapptic, Nightborn, Movify, KERN-IT, JEMS Benelux, Smile Belgium and BeLead all offer development alongside UX and UI design. Namahn concentrates on research, design, training and design operations.

Related lists

UX design agencies in other cities: Paris · Amsterdam · London · New York · Toronto

More in Brussels: Creative agencies · Design agencies · Branding agencies · Marketing agencies · Social media agencies

Run your studio on Fabric: Fabric for UI and UX agencies · Fabric for designers · Design feedback