There is a fast answer and a thorough answer.
The fast answer is the Crossroads Bank for Enterprises, which is free, needs no login, and tells you a company's legal state in about fifteen seconds. The thorough answer is the Belgian Official Gazette, which tells you when the court ruled, who the trustee is, and by when creditors have to file.
This guide covers four routes and what each one is actually good for. It also covers the one field that trips people up, and the register that looks public but is not.
Route one: the Crossroads Bank, for a yes or no
Open KBO Public Search and enter the enterprise number. If you only have a name, search by name first and take the number from the result.
On the company page, look at the field called Rechtstoestand.
This is the part people get wrong. There are two fields that look like they mean the same thing, and they do not:
Field | What it tells you |
Status | Whether the entity is still registered. Stays "Actief" even after bankruptcy. |
Rechtstoestand | The legal state. This is where bankruptcy appears. |
A bankrupt company can, and does, show Status: Actief and Rechtstoestand: Opening faillissement at the same time. We checked this against live records. A large retailer declared bankrupt in January 2023 still reads "Actief" under Status today. If you check the wrong field you will conclude the company is fine.
The Rechtstoestand field also carries other states. We have verified "Normale toestand" for a healthy company and "Opschorting (gerechtelijke reorganisatie)" for a company in judicial reorganisation, which is a company in trouble but not bankrupt. We have not verified the full list of possible values, so treat anything other than "Normale toestand" as a reason to look further rather than as a label you can interpret precisely.
The register footer shows the date the data was current, typically the previous day. Public Search is free.
Route two: the Official Gazette, for the detail
The Crossroads Bank tells you that a company is bankrupt. The Belgian Official Gazette tells you everything else.
Use the main search at ejustice.just.fgov.be. This is a full-text search of the Gazette. Search the phrase "Opening van het faillissement" and restrict the publication date, and you get every bankruptcy opened in that window. Over an eleven-day window in September 2026 that returned 166 results.
A bankruptcy notice gives you, in a few lines:
the enterprise court and division that ruled
the company name, address and enterprise number
the date of the bankruptcy judgment
the provisional date on which payments stopped
the trustees, with their names and contact details
the deadline for creditors to file their claim
That last pair is why this route matters commercially. If you are owed money, the trustee's contact details and the filing deadline are the only two things you actually need, and this is where they are published.
Route three: the legal persons annex, and a genuine trap
There is a second search on the same government domain, the Bijlage van de Rechtspersonen. It covers company acts rather than the full Gazette, and searches by enterprise number, name, postcode, address, publication number, publication date, legal form, and a subject dropdown.
You can find a bankruptcy here, but only if you already know which company you are looking for. We tested two companies and the bankruptcy appeared for both. What makes it a trap is the labelling.
The word "faillissement" appears nowhere in the search form. There is no bankruptcy filter. The bankruptcy is filed under a subject heading that reads, in full, "rubriek einde (stopzetting, intrekking stopzetting, nietigheid, ger. ak., gerechtelijke reorganisatie, enz...)". You have to know that a bankruptcy hides inside a rubric named after endings in general.
And the courts themselves send you here and call it the wrong thing. The official courts and tribunals website links to what it labels "Belgisch Staatsblad", and that link goes to this annex search, not to the Gazette search in route two. Two different searches, one label. If someone has told you the Official Gazette search does not find bankruptcies, this is almost certainly why: they were in the annex, looking for a filter that does not exist.
So: use the annex when you have a company and want its filings. Use the main Gazette search when you want to find bankruptcies you did not already know about.
Route four: RegSol, which is not a public search
RegSol, the Central Solvency Register, is where the actual bankruptcy file lives. Creditors file their claims through it and trustees manage the case in it.
It is not a public lookup, and this is worth being precise about because it is widely misdescribed.
You cannot search it without an account. The site states that you can only log in if you already have an account, with authentication through the national eID, itsme or a professional token. The only genuinely open pages are the lists of trustees per enterprise court and of liquidation experts.
Anyone may request access to an open file, but the request is assessed. Access is granted only to those who qualify as a creditor or interested third party under the categories set out in law, and for a bankruptcy opened after 1 May 2018 the decision rests with the supervising judge. Closed files do not appear in searches at all, only open ones.
On cost, there is an outdated figure in circulation. Belgian legal blogs still quote six euro to file a claim. The register operator's own tariff schedule, valid from 1 January 2026, puts filing a claim and consulting a bankruptcy file at zero euro, following a royal decree of 27 November 2019. Other charges in that schedule fall on trustees and debtors, not on someone looking a company up. Note that we are quoting the tariff document rather than the decree itself.
One caution: the access rules above come from the register's user regulation dated November 2023. The site links to a September 2026 version, but that link is dead, so we cannot confirm whether the categories have changed since.
What about the courts' own lists?
Some enterprise courts publish weekly lists of bankruptcies opened and closed. These are useful if they cover your area, but two limits matter.
They are partial. The list commonly found through search covers a single division, Antwerp division Turnhout, not the country. And the courts label them clearly as informative only, pointing to the Official Gazette for the official publication. The PDFs are scans without a text layer, so you cannot search inside them.
Which route for which question
Your question | Route |
Is this company bankrupt right now? | Crossroads Bank, field Rechtstoestand |
When did it happen and who is the trustee? | Official Gazette main search |
What has this company filed over the years? | Bijlage van de Rechtspersonen |
I am a creditor and need the case file | RegSol, with an approved access request |
How many bankruptcies were there this year? | Statbel statistics |
That last one is a different kind of question. Statbel publishes aggregate figures, never company names. We cover what those numbers say, and how they are routinely misread, in Belgian bankruptcies in numbers.
Seeing it earlier
By the time a bankruptcy is published, the commercial decision has usually already been made for you. The earlier signals sit in the filed accounts, and they are public.
A company that stops filing is telling you something. So is a solvency ratio that has been falling for three years. Solvency, liquidity and profitability covers which ratios move first, and how to read a Belgian company's annual accounts covers where to find them and what the short-form accounts leave out.
For the wider picture of what the register publishes and when, start at the Belgian company register.
Read next: Belgian bankruptcies by province: where the increase actually is.
Frequently asked questions
How do I check for free whether a Belgian company is bankrupt?
Search the company in KBO Public Search and read the Rechtstoestand field. It is free and needs no account. Do not use the Status field, which stays "Actief" after a bankruptcy.
What is the difference between Status and Rechtstoestand?
Status says whether the entity is still registered in the Crossroads Bank. Rechtstoestand describes its legal state, and this is where a bankruptcy or a judicial reorganisation appears. They are independent, so a bankrupt company commonly shows Status "Actief".
Can I search RegSol to see if a company is bankrupt?
No. RegSol requires an account and an approved access request, granted only to creditors and interested third parties, and it only contains open files. For a simple bankrupt-or-not answer, use the Crossroads Bank.
Where do I find the trustee for a bankrupt Belgian company?
In the bankruptcy notice published in the Belgian Official Gazette. It names the trustees and gives their contact details, along with the date of the judgment and the deadline for filing claims.
Why can't I find a bankruptcy filter in the Official Gazette search?
Because you are probably in the legal persons annex rather than the main Gazette search. The annex has no bankruptcy filter, and files bankruptcies under a rubric about endings in general. The main search at the Gazette is a full-text search, so you search for the wording of the notice instead of picking a category.
Does a judicial reorganisation mean the company is bankrupt?
No. Judicial reorganisation is a protective procedure for a company in difficulty, and it appears in the Rechtstoestand field as a suspension. It is a serious warning sign, not a bankruptcy.
