This article examines legislative turnover and parliamentary career length in the Belgian Chamber of Representatives since Belgian independence in 1831. Early on a stable representative elite emerged, characterized by a relatively low turnover and an average parliamentary career of nearly ten years. This pattern has changed substantially in the second half of the twentieth century. The average career length in the Chamber is nowadays historically low, due to some extent to the practice of level-hopping. The distribution of career lengths is at the same time highly asymmetrical. The literature on parliamentary careers and turnover suggests three major explanatory variables: regime change, the evolution of political parties and of the institutional framework. In the Belgian case institutional reform and regime change generated merely temporary effects. The same goes for the rise of the organised mass party at the end of the 19th century. The drop in average career length after the Second World War corresponds with a tighter hold of political parties on the selection process of parliamentary candidates.