Belgian annual accounts: how to find a company's figures

You want to know whether a new Belgian customer can actually pay, how big a competitor really is, or how a potential partner is doing. The answer is in the annual accounts. In Belgium those are public for every company, free of charge and usually found within a minute, even from abroad. Here is how.

Why annual accounts are public in Belgium

A company such as a BV/SRL (private limited company) or NV/SA (public limited company) enjoys limited liability: if things go wrong, the shareholders lose at most their contribution. The price of that privilege is transparency. The Belgian Companies and Associations Code therefore obliges every company to file its annual accounts each year with the Central Balance Sheet Office of the National Bank of Belgium (NBB), the central registry where all Belgian financial statements are deposited and published without restriction. You do not have to state a reason and the company is not notified that someone has looked at its figures.

The general meeting approves the accounts within six months after the end of the financial year and the filing follows at the latest seven months after year end. For a financial year ending on 31 December that means 31 July at the latest. Late filers pay a surcharge. How that works is explained in filing annual accounts in Belgium: deadline and penalties.

Source 1: NBB Consult, the official registry

NBB Consult is the free consultation tool of the Central Balance Sheet Office. You search by enterprise number or name and get the filed accounts per financial year, downloadable as a PDF or as an XBRL file (the structured format accountants use to file).

The advantage: this is the original, literally what the company submitted, including the auditor's report and the full notes. The disadvantage: you get one company and one financial year at a time, in a document of 20 to 60 pages full of account codes, in Dutch, French or German. If you want to know whether profit has grown compared with three years ago, you open four PDFs and do the maths yourself. Ratios are not included. For anyone who needs one specific document (for a credit file, for example) this is the right place. For a quick assessment it is cumbersome.

Source 2: CBE Public Search, identity only

CBE Public Search (KBO Public Search in Dutch) is run by the Federal Public Service Economy and has an English interface. It is often mistaken for a source of financial statements, but it is not. The Crossroads Bank for Enterprises (KBO/CBE) is the Belgian company register and holds the identity data: official name, enterprise number, legal form, registered office, incorporation date, establishment units, NACE activity codes and the legal status (active, in liquidation, bankrupt). You will not see any figures. Use the CBE for the question "does this company exist and is the VAT number correct", not for "can this company pay my invoice". How to do that first check thoroughly is described in check a Belgian VAT number.

Source 3: Jaarrekening.be, the figures already processed

Jaarrekening.be collects the same filed accounts from the Central Balance Sheet Office, links them to the CBE data and to the publications in the Belgian Official Gazette (the official journal for company decisions), and puts everything per company on one page, in English. You search on the financial statements page by name or enterprise number (with or without the BE prefix and the dots) and land on the Summary tab.

What you see there straight away, and what the PDF does not give you:

• Multi-year overview: turnover (where published), gross margin, profit, equity and employees side by side, with the change against the previous year and a chart.
• Ratios on the Financial ratios tab: solvability, current ratio, quick ratio, profitability, customer and supplier credit in days, EBITDA and cashflow, each over several years.
• Health score out of 5 and a suggested credit limit, both computed from the filed figures.
• Directors with current and former mandates, taken from the Official Gazette publications, with a click-through to the other mandates of the same person.
• Publications: incorporation, appointments, amendments to the articles, dissolution, with the original PDF.
• The Financial statements tab with the list of all filings, for anyone who still wants the original.

A free account is enough to view the basic figures. Following companies, building lists, advanced search by sector or region and exporting to Excel are part of Pro.

What Belgian annual accounts contain

A Belgian set of annual accounts has four fixed parts, whatever the size of the company:

• The balance sheet: a snapshot on the closing date. On one side the assets (buildings, machinery, inventory, receivables from customers, cash), on the other the liabilities (equity, provisions and debt). How to read it is explained in how to read a Belgian balance sheet.
• The income statement: the film of the year. Income minus costs, through operating result and financial result down to the profit or loss after tax.
• The notes: the detailed tables behind the figures. This is where you find, among other things, the participations in other companies, the valuation rules, the amounts owed to the tax authorities and the social security office at the closing date, and the remuneration of directors (for large companies).
• The social balance: number of employees, full-time equivalents, staff turnover and training.

How much detail you get depends on the format. Large companies file the full format, small companies (not exceeding more than one of: 50 employees, 11.25 million euro turnover, 6 million euro balance sheet total) the abbreviated format, and micro companies the micro format. The difference is considerable and determines, among other things, whether you get to see the turnover.

What you will not find in the annual accounts

• The turnover of small companies. Companies filing the abbreviated or micro format only publish their gross margin (code 9900). The vast majority of Belgian companies fall into that category. You can still estimate turnover by combining gross margin, employees and the sector average.
• The shareholders. Belgium has no public shareholder register for private companies. The UBO register (beneficial owners, kept by the Federal Public Service Finance) is only accessible to authorities, obliged entities under the anti-money-laundering rules and citizens with a legitimate interest. You only see owners where they appear in a filed document, for example as a participation in the notes of the parent company. See how to find the UBO of a Belgian company.
• Outstanding social security or tax debt today. The balance sheet shows the debt at the closing date, often more than six months old by the time you read it. A summons by the National Social Security Office (RSZ/ONSS) is not visible. Indirect signals are: a rising line "amounts payable for taxes, remuneration and social security", a late filing or publications in the Official Gazette.
• Customers, contracts, order book. None of that is public.

How far back can you go?

The Central Balance Sheet Office makes annual accounts available online from 1992 onwards. On Jaarrekening.be you see the complete filing history per company and can open each individual financial year. For an assessment the last three to five years are usually enough: sufficient to see a trend (is equity growing, or melting away?) without getting lost in old restructurings.

No annual accounts found? These are the reasons

Sometimes you look up a company, find a CBE record, but not a single set of accounts. That almost always has one of these four explanations:

• It is a sole trader. Natural persons do not file annual accounts, even if they have an enterprise number and staff. You only see the CBE data.
• It is a small non-profit association (VZW/ASBL). Small associations deposit their simplified accounts with the registry of the enterprise court (the court that handles company matters and bankruptcies), not with the National Bank. Only large and very large associations file with the Central Balance Sheet Office.
• The company is too young. A company incorporated in March 2026 usually closes its first financial year on 31 December 2026 (sometimes later, with an extended first year) and does not file until the summer of 2027.
• The filing is late or missing. If the company is more than two years old and you see no recent accounts, that is a warning sign in itself. After three consecutive financial years without filing, the enterprise court can dissolve the company. Check the publications and the legal status straight away (see is a Belgian company bankrupt?).

In summary

Finding the annual accounts of a Belgian company is not a problem: the Central Balance Sheet Office publishes everything. The real question is which form you need. If you want the official document, go to NBB Consult. If you only want to know whether the company exists, the CBE is enough. If you want to know within a minute how the company is doing, with several years side by side and the ratios already calculated, look it up on Jaarrekening.be. And if you find nothing at all, that usually tells you something about who you are dealing with.