A customer who stops answering, a contractor who walks off the site: the question "is that company bankrupt?" rarely comes up at a quiet moment. Fortunately the answer is public in Belgium and can be found in a few minutes. Here you read where to look it up, what each legal status means and what you should do immediately as a creditor.
Where do you officially check whether a Belgian company is bankrupt?
In Belgium bankruptcies are handled by the enterprise court (ondernemingsrechtbank / tribunal de l'entreprise), the commercial court of the district where the company has its registered office, and every step is published. You have four official sources, each with a different purpose:
- CBE Public Search: the public interface of the Crossroads Bank for Enterprises, the federal register of all Belgian businesses, with an English interface. Search by name or enterprise number and read the "legal status". This is the fastest check, and the status is updated within a few days after the judgment.
- Belgian Official Gazette (Belgisch Staatsblad / Moniteur belge): the official journal where the bankruptcy judgment appears with the date, the appointed trustee (curator), the supervising judge and the deadline within which creditors must file their claims. Dissolutions, appointments of liquidators and the opening of a judicial reorganisation are published here too.
- RegSol (Central Solvency Register): the digital bankruptcy file. Here the trustee manages the file and you, as a creditor, file your claim.
- Enterprise court: declares the bankruptcy and supervises the file. You rarely need to go there yourself, unless you want to petition for the bankruptcy of a non-paying debtor.
The legal statuses explained
The CBE has dozens of codes, but these are the ones you meet in practice. The last column tells you what the status means for you as a supplier or creditor.
| Legal status | What it means | For you as a creditor |
|---|---|---|
| Normal status | The company exists and is active. Says nothing about its financial health. | Business as usual , but check the figures |
| Suspension (judicial reorganisation) | Formerly WCO. The court temporarily protects the company against creditors so it can restructure through an amicable agreement, a collective agreement or a transfer of the business. | Old invoices frozen , new deliveries only against cash payment |
| Opening of bankruptcy | The enterprise court has declared the bankruptcy. A trustee takes over management, the directors are sidelined. | Stop delivering , file your claim through RegSol |
| Closure of bankruptcy | The trustee has sold and distributed everything. The company ceases to exist. | Too late , whatever was not distributed is lost |
| Voluntary dissolution / liquidation | The shareholders decide to stop. A liquidator sells the assets and in principle pays all debts. | Register your claim with the liquidator, no new contracts |
| Judicial dissolution | The court imposes the dissolution, often because no annual accounts were filed for three years, or at the request of the public prosecutor. | Red flag , often an empty shell without assets |
| Closure of liquidation | The liquidation is complete and the company no longer exists. | Closed , only recourse against the liquidator in case of errors |
| Cessation (natural person) | A sole trader has ceased activity. There is no company, so no trustee or liquidator either. | Debts remain personally owed by the entrepreneur |
Two nuances. First: "Normal status" is not a quality label. A company with negative equity and three years of losses also sits on "Normal status", right up to the day of the judgment. Second: a company in judicial reorganisation is not bankrupt. A considerable share of those procedures nevertheless ends in bankruptcy, so be careful with new credit.
How to check it on Jaarrekening.be
Jaarrekening.be brings the CBE status, the Official Gazette publications and the annual accounts together in one place. Search the company by name or enterprise number and look in three places:
- Summary: at the top, the juridical situation as a badge, next to the enterprise number and the legal form. On the same page you see the Health score and the timeline of events.
- Publications: all publications from the Belgian Official Gazette, with date and PDF. Here you read the bankruptcy judgment itself, with the name of the trustee and the deadline for your claim. The appointment of a liquidator or the opening of a judicial reorganisation is here as well.
- Updates: the recent changes at a glance, such as a new publication, a change of director or newly filed annual accounts.
What do you do as a creditor in a bankruptcy?
Once the judgment is there, the clock is ticking. This is the order that works:
File your claim through RegSol
The judgment sets a deadline (usually 30 days) within which you declare your claim to the trustee. You do that online on RegSol: create an account, find the file and upload your invoices, contracts and reminders. Late filing is still possible up to one year after the judgment, but you miss any distributions made in the meantime.
Invoke your retention of title
If your general terms and conditions or contract contain a retention of title clause, goods delivered but not paid for remain your property. You can claim them back from the trustee as long as they are still identifiable at the bankrupt company. Condition: the clause must have been agreed in writing at the latest at the time of delivery. A clause on the back of an invoice sent after delivery often does not hold.
Use your right of retention
If you hold goods belonging to the customer (a car in for repair, a machine in your warehouse), you may keep them until you are paid. Do not hand them over to the trustee without an arrangement about your claim.
Reclaim the VAT
The VAT you paid over on the unpaid invoice can be reclaimed from the date of the bankruptcy judgment. You do not have to wait for the closure of the bankruptcy. Your accountant processes it through the VAT return. In a judicial reorganisation the same applies from the judgment that approves the plan, for the part you write off.
Seeing a bankruptcy coming
The legal status only changes on the day of the judgment. The annual accounts, which every Belgian company must file with the National Bank of Belgium, often show the problems years earlier: falling or negative equity, growing debts to the tax authorities and social security (the balance sheet line "debts relating to taxes, remuneration and social security"), accounts filed late or not at all, and directors who suddenly resign. We list them in 5 warning signs that a Belgian company is going bankrupt. Combine those signals with the Health score on the Summary tab and you have an honest assessment, well before the CBE reports anything.
Does the director have a history of bankruptcies?
Some entrepreneurs let a company go bankrupt and start again a month later under a different name, with the same customers and suppliers. You check that in two steps on Jaarrekening.be:
- Open the Directors tab of the company and click the name of a director. You land on his or her person page with all current and former mandates, including start and end dates.
- Next to each mandate you see the company with its juridical situation. Several bankrupt or dissolved companies in the list, especially in quick succession, are a reason to ask for advance payment or to walk away.
Only know the name of the manager and not the company? Use the person search and work back from there to the companies.
In short
Whether a Belgian company is bankrupt, you read from the legal status in the CBE. The judgment, the trustee and your deadline are in the Belgian Official Gazette, the file runs through RegSol. On Jaarrekening.be you see status and publications in one place, and as a Pro user you receive an alert as soon as something changes. If you are a creditor: file your claim quickly, invoke retention of title and your right of retention, and reclaim the VAT. Then look closely at the figures of your other customers, because the next bankruptcy is usually already visible in a set of annual accounts.
