How to find the directors of a Belgian company: zaakvoerder, bestuurder and permanent representative
Tips
The short answer
To find who legally runs a Belgian company, look up its enterprise number in KBO Public Search and open the Functions section. It lists every current director (bestuurder), manager (zaakvoerder), person in charge of daily management and permanent representative, each with a start date, free. Under the 2019 Code of Companies and Associations, the people who run a BV, NV or CV are called bestuurders; zaakvoerder was the title in the old BVBA and is still the term in a VOF or CommV. When another company holds the mandate, the KBO shows only its enterprise number, and the law requires that company to name a natural person as vaste vertegenwoordiger. For history, read the Official Gazette; for a year-end list, the annual accounts. None of these tells you who buys.
The legal rules below come from the Code of Companies and Associations on Justel, the register fields from KBO Public Search and the FPS Economy, read on 1 October 2026. This is general information, not legal advice.
Zaakvoerder, bestuurder, gedelegeerd bestuurder: who is who
These titles are legal mandates, not job titles.
Title (Dutch / French) | What it means | Where you meet it |
|---|---|---|
Bestuurder / administrateur | Member of the management body of a BV, NV or CV. A BV has one or more, acting alone or as a college (art. 5:70). An NV has a board of at least three, or two while it has fewer than three shareholders (art. 7:85), or a single director if the statutes provide for it (art. 7:101). | KBO functions, Official Gazette, annual accounts |
Zaakvoerder / gérant | Manager of a VOF or CommV; the managers form the management body (art. 4:22). Also the title in the old BVBA. | Partnerships, older deeds and CRM records; the National Bank's filing forms still say "bestuurders, zaakvoerders en commissarissen" |
Gedelegeerd bestuurder / administrateur délégué | A director who also holds daily management. The Code itself speaks of daily management (dagelijks bestuur), not of this title. | A separate KBO function. At Proximus the CEO appears twice: as bestuurder and as gedelegeerd bestuurder. |
Persoon belast met dagelijks bestuur / personne déléguée à la gestion journalière | The board can hand day-to-day management, and representation for it, to one or more persons, not necessarily directors (art. 5:79 BV, 7:121 NV). | KBO functions, Official Gazette |
Vaste vertegenwoordiger / représentant permanent | The natural person a company must appoint when it becomes director or daily manager of another company (art. 2:55). | KBO functions, next to the enterprise number of the director company |
What the 2019 Code changed
The Code of Companies and Associations has applied to existing companies since 1 January 2020. From that day, the law reads "BVBA" as "BV", whether or not the statutes were updated, and statutes had to be aligned by 1 January 2024 at the latest (art. 39 of the law of 23 March 2019). So the person you call the zaakvoerder of a BV is, in law, a bestuurder. The old word survives in speech and old documents, and remains correct for a VOF or CommV. Legal forms themselves are explained in Belgian legal forms explained.
One side effect shows up in the register. A company we checked was set up in 1978 as a BVBA; its KBO record now shows its director as bestuurder "since 4 September 2023", the same date its legal form became BV. Read that date as the start of the current registration, not of the person's involvement.
When a company is the director: the vaste vertegenwoordiger
Directors can be natural or legal persons, and many Belgian SMEs are run through a management company. Article 2:55 of the Code then requires that company to appoint a natural person as permanent representative, who carries out the mandate in its name. That person must meet the same conditions as the company, is jointly liable with it, cannot also sit on the same board in their own name, and cannot be removed without a successor being named at the same time. Their appointment is published like the director's.
In KBO Public Search this looks like a director line with an enterprise number instead of a name, and a separate line "Permanent representative", with a person's name followed by that same number in brackets. Click the number to open the management company's own record. For outreach, the permanent representative is the person behind the mandate.
Three free ways to look up the directors
Source | What it shows | What it leaves out |
|---|---|---|
KBO Public Search, Functions | Current holders of legal functions with their start date: names of natural persons, enterprise numbers of legal persons, permanent representatives | History, powers of representation, contact details. Reusing the data or downloading it systematically is prohibited. |
Official Gazette, annexes for legal persons | Every published appointment and resignation. The extract names the person (or the company's name, legal form, enterprise number and seat) and states their powers and whether they act alone, jointly or as a college (art. 2:8). | Only scanned deeds, searched company by company; the publication date is not the date of the decision |
Annual accounts at the National Bank | A full list of directors, managers and auditors with name, profession, residence and function, in both the micro and the full model | Only once a year, and only for companies that file accounts |
Start in the KBO; the Belgian company register guide shows where the functions sit. For who came and went, filter the Gazette on appointments and resignations, as described in how to search the Official Gazette. The accounts are useful to confirm who was in place at year end; how to look up Belgian annual accounts shows where to download them.
Is the KBO list complete?
The FPS Economy describes Functions as the persons who hold a legal function within the entity, with a start date. It is the official current picture, with three limits:
Current state only. Former directors disappear from the page. The Gazette keeps the history.
Only as fresh as the filings. An appointment or resignation has to be filed within thirty days (art. 2:8), and it can only be relied on against third parties once published (art. 2:18). A change can take weeks to appear, and one nobody files does not appear at all.
No powers. The KBO tells you who holds a mandate, not whether one director can sign alone. That is in the statutes; see how to find a company's statutes.
Paid and aggregated routes
The free sources work one company at a time. The FPS Economy sells a Public Search web service (50 euros per 2,000 requests) for teams that build their own lookups. Business information and monitoring services combine the KBO, the Gazette and the accounts and alert you to changes; how to track director changes compares them.
In Bizzy, every Belgian legal entity has a Directors tab, next to its National Bank accounts and its Official Gazette publications, where appointments and dismissals are a document type you can filter on. The people filters include verified officials alongside role, seniority and department, so registered officers and functional contacts at the same companies end up in one list.
The director signs, the buyer chooses
A director of a BV can in principle perform every act the company needs and represent it alone, unless the statutes create a collegial board or a representation clause (art. 5:73). So the register is the right source for checking who can sign, addressing formal letters and spotting a change of management as a reason to call.
It is the wrong source for finding who picks a supplier. In a company of five, the bestuurder is the buyer. In a larger one, the director may be a management company or a board member who never sees your category, while an operations or finance lead chooses. How to find the decision-maker at a Belgian SME covers that step. Use the register to confirm authority, and search by function to find the buyer.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a zaakvoerder and a bestuurder? Since the 2019 Code, the people who run a BV, NV or CV are bestuurders. Zaakvoerder was the title in the old BVBA and is still the term for the managers of a VOF or CommV.
How do I find out who the zaakvoerder of a company is? Search the company name or enterprise number in KBO Public Search and open Functions. It shows the current directors with start dates, free. The Official Gazette shows past appointments and resignations.
What is a vaste vertegenwoordiger? The natural person a company must appoint when it becomes director of another company. They carry out the mandate and appear in the KBO next to the director company's number.
Is a gedelegeerd bestuurder the same as a CEO? Often the same person, but not the same thing. Gedelegeerd bestuurder is a legal mandate: a director entrusted with daily management. CEO is a job title and is not registered anywhere.
Photo: the facade of Leuven town hall, Krzysztof Golik, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons