How to read a Belgian company's annual accounts before you call

The short answer

Requesting or viewing a set of Belgian annual accounts is free: through the National Bank's Consult tool, anyone can open every filed set of accounts as PDF, XBRL or CSV, without an account. In 2025, 593,323 sets were filed by 567,501 legal entities, and Consult was used 4.3 million times (NBB).

Getting the document is not the problem. Reading what is in it is, and above all what is not in it. For many small companies the turnover figure is missing, the numbers lag behind because a financial year closing on 31 December only has to be filed by the end of the following July, and a set of accounts that is absent tells you more than one that is present.

Requesting them is manual work, though. The figures are in Consult, the directors and legal status in the KBO and the changes in the Official Gazette, one company at a time and each in a different format. In Bizzy you find those three sources together in one place, with the useful figures at a glance.

This article is written for someone who wants to check a company before a conversation, not for someone who has to prepare the accounts. It covers Belgium: the National Bank of Belgium (NBB), the Crossroads Bank for Enterprises (KBO/BCE) and the Belgian Official Gazette, with the rules from the Code of Companies and Associations (WVV).

Where to look up or request Belgian annual accounts, compared

For one company the National Bank is the answer. For a hundred companies, or for the question "who filed figures this quarter that point to growth", it is a database that has already parsed the accounts per legal entity.

The figures all come from the same filing at the National Bank. The difference is how far back you can go, how many companies you can look at at once and what sits next to the figures. More on the API route in KBO API compared.

Where do you get the annual accounts?

Three official sources, each with its own job.

The National Bank's Central Balance Sheet Office collects the annual accounts of almost every legal entity in Belgium and makes them available to anyone free of charge through the Consult application. You search by name or enterprise number and get the list of every published set of accounts, each openable as PDF, XBRL or CSV (NBB). This is the source virtually every other source, free or paid, takes its annual-account figures from.

KBO Public Search gives you the basics, also free: enterprise number, legal form, status, start date, registered office, establishment units, NACE-BEL codes, the names of founders and office holders, and whatever contact details the company registered itself, down to phone number, email address and website (FPS Economy). Every KBO record also has a direct link to the published accounts at the NBB under "External links", and under "Financial data" the month of the annual general meeting and the end date of the financial year. One field deserves particular attention, and we come back to it: the ex officio striking off for failure to file annual accounts.

The annexes to the Belgian Official Gazette show what happens between two sets of accounts. You search by enterprise number, name or postcode and filter by heading: incorporation, appointments and resignations, capital and shares, change of registered office, change of legal form, restructuring, cessation (Belgian Official Gazette). That is not accounting. Those are reasons to call.

Looking up annual accounts in Consult, step by step

1. Find the enterprise number. If you only have a name, look it up in KBO Public Search first. How that works is in how to look up a company in the KBO.

2. Open Consult on the National Bank's website, in the section on the Central Balance Sheet Office. According to the National Bank, anyone can use Consult to view the annual accounts filed with the National Bank of Belgium since 1999.

3. Search by enterprise number (the most reliable option) or by a word from the name, and open the company's page.

4. Choose the filing. Each filing has a reference, a financial year and a model. Download the PDF to read it, or the XBRL or CSV to process the figures.

5. Read it. Which figures to look at first is covered further down, under "The three figures you should read".

Example: the bpost annual accounts in Consult

Enter enterprise number 0214.596.464 and Consult shows the name, registered office, legal form, legal situation and a link to the KBO at the top, and below that every set of accounts the National Bank has accepted, most recent first. Each line shows the model, whether it is a first filing or a correction, the reference, the filing date, the closing date of the financial year and the language, with buttons for PDF, XBRL and CSV. The bpost accounts for the financial year that closed on 31 December 2025 were filed on 18 May 2026, in Dutch and in French.

Watch out for two things. A group such as bpost files a consolidated accounts model ("Model voor geconsolideerde jaarrekening") alongside the full model for companies ("Volledig model kapitaalvennootschap"); for the figures of the whole group you need the consolidated one. And if a financial year shows a correction, look at both: according to the National Bank, a corrected filing does not replace the accounts filed earlier.

Why requesting annual accounts takes so much manual work

To get to know one Belgian company properly, you visit three sites. In KBO Public Search you look up the enterprise number, legal form, directors and any striking off. In Consult you open the PDF of the annual accounts and look up the codes that matter yourself, such as 10/15 for equity and 10/49 for total liabilities. In the annexes to the Official Gazette you browse the publications by heading to see what changed since those accounts.

For one company that is doable. For a list of fifty prospects you repeat it fifty times, line up the financial years yourself and keep track of who has filed new accounts or a new publication in the meantime.

Everything in one place in Bizzy

In Bizzy the KBO data, the annual accounts from the National Bank and the publications in the Official Gazette are linked per company, in one overview. You see the key figures at a glance, such as equity, debt ratio, turnover where filed and headcount, with four financial years side by side and the filed PDF for each year. In that same overview you find the legal form, the directors and the official publications. No more going through registers and databases.

Source: National Bank (Consult), FPS Economy (KBO Public Search), Belgian Official Gazette; Bizzy, October 2026.

Building lists on financial filters

The biggest difference is in the lists. In Bizzy you build a list based on financial filters, such as turnover, equity, debt ratio and headcount, and combine them with legal form, sector or region. All BVs with positive equity and a debt ratio below 0.5 can then be filtered out directly, instead of opening and comparing fifty sets of accounts one by one. That makes the work substantially lighter.

The official sources stay free and complete. Bizzy takes away the searching in between.

And in the Netherlands? Annual accounts at the KVK

If you work with Dutch companies, almost everything about this procedure changes. The annual accounts are not held by a central bank but by the Dutch Chamber of Commerce (KVK), and the rules differ on three points that matter in practice.

Who has to file. In the Netherlands, BVs (private limited companies) and NVs (public limited companies) are almost always required to file annual accounts. Sole proprietorships, general partnerships and cooperatives usually are not, unless they are part of a group structure. That looks like the Belgian situation, but the legal forms have different names and the thresholds are not identical.

How far back you can go. At the KVK you can request annual accounts going back seven years, counted from the first day of the calendar year following the filing date. In Belgium, everything since 1999 is online through Consult. If you need older Dutch figures, you hit a wall that does not exist in Belgium.

What it costs. This is the biggest difference. The Belgian Central Balance Sheet Office is free to consult. At the KVK, a set of annual accounts is an ordered product and you pay per document, with a separate rate for a digitally certified version. Current rates are on the KVK's own order page; they change too often to repeat here.

The formats are comparable. The KVK supplies PDF, XBRL, and zip files with XHTML or iXBRL. A digitally certified version only exists as a PDF, and a paper copy is ordered by phone.

The practical consequence for anyone working in both countries: a Belgian check costs you nothing and you can run it on every file, while in the Netherlands you pay per request. That changes how you work. In Belgium you can check a complete list; in the Netherlands you select first and check afterwards.

When do the annual accounts appear?

Later than you think. The law stacks two deadlines: the accounts must be put to the general meeting for approval within six months of the end of the financial year, and filed with the National Bank within thirty days of that approval and at the latest seven months after year-end (articles 3:1, 3:10 and 3:12 WVV; NBB).

For most companies, with a financial year closing on 31 December, that means the 2025 figures must be public by the end of July 2026 at the latest. Call in June 2026 and you are often still looking at figures frozen on 31 December 2024. Call in September and you usually have the fresh set. A new filing appears in Consult shortly after the National Bank has validated its payment (NBB).

Bear that in mind before you judge. A company with "no recent accounts" in March is simply doing what the law allows.

What if the accounts are not there?

First check whether the company has to file at all. According to the National Bank, natural persons who are traders do not, and neither do, among others, small general partnerships and ordinary limited partnerships. Associations and foundations that keep simplified accounts file with the registry of the enterprise court, not with the National Bank; see the annual accounts of a non-profit (vzw). And a new company only has something to file after its first financial year.

If the company does have to file and the deadline has passed, that is where it gets interesting. In Belgium a missing or late set of accounts has four consequences, and each one is a signal for you.

One: a surcharge that climbs. Whoever files late pays a surcharge on top of the normal fee; anyone who disagrees with it can start an appeal procedure. From the first day of the ninth month after year-end (2026 amounts): 151 euros for small companies using the abbreviated or micro model, 504 euros for the others. From the tenth to the twelfth month: 227 or 755 euros. From the thirteenth month: 453 or 1,510 euros. The amounts are indexed every 1 January (NBB). The law describes the surcharge as a contribution to the costs the state incurs in detecting and following up companies in financial difficulty. That says enough about how the legislator reads a late filing.

Two: striking off from the KBO. A company that fails to file annual accounts for at least three consecutive financial years can be struck off ex officio by the KBO. The striking off is published in the Official Gazette and visible in Public Search, and it is only withdrawn once the accounts are filed (NBB). If you see that entry in the KBO, you know the company has filed no annual accounts for at least three consecutive financial years and has not yet put that right.

Three: a reversed burden of proof. Damage suffered by third parties is presumed, unless the company proves otherwise, to result from the failure to file (article 3:1 WVV). For a supplier delivering on credit, that is not a detail.

Four: judicial dissolution. At the request of any interested party, the court can order the dissolution of a company that does not file its accounts, unless it regularises the situation during the proceedings.

This is general information based on the WVV and the National Bank's pages, not legal or accounting advice. To assess a specific counterparty or your own filing obligations, consult an accountant or lawyer.

For a salesperson that comes down to one line: a set of accounts that has been missing for more than a year is not a gap in your data. It is one of the most reliable free signals you can get about a company. You can check it yourself in the KBO and in Consult.

Which model, and why you usually will not see turnover

This is where most readers go wrong, and it has nothing to do with reading skill.

A Belgian company files its accounts under one of three models, depending on its size. Small is a company that on its balance sheet date exceeds no more than one of these thresholds: 50 full-time employees, 11,250,000 euros annual turnover excluding VAT, 6,000,000 euros balance sheet total; a threshold only counts as exceeded when it is exceeded for two consecutive financial years. Micro is a small company that exceeds no more than one of these: 10 full-time employees, 900,000 euros turnover, 450,000 euros balance sheet total. Those amounts apply to financial years starting on or after 1 January 2024; before that they stood at 9,000,000 and 4,500,000, and 700,000 and 350,000 euros respectively (articles 1:24 and 1:25 WVV; NBB).

Large companies use the full model. Small ones may use the abbreviated model, micro companies the micro model. And that is the catch:

In the abbreviated and micro models, the first line of the income statement is not turnover but gross margin, in short: turnover plus other operating income, less goods for resale, raw materials, consumables and services. Turnover itself appears in those models as an optional disclosure, recognisable by the asterisk on the official form (NBB, abbreviated model; CBN). In practice many small companies leave that line blank. The National Bank publishes no count of how many do; Bizzy's count below does give an idea, so do not count on it being filled in.

Because "small" runs up to 50 employees and 11.25 million euros of turnover, it is safe to assume that most Belgian companies file under the abbreviated or micro model. The practical consequence: for many of the companies you will call, the accounts contain no turnover figure. Anyone who tells you they "looked up the turnover in the accounts" was looking at a large company, at a small company that did fill in the optional line, at a database's estimate, or at the wrong number.

How many annual accounts report turnover

Of the 582,021 active companies with a balance sheet total in Bizzy, 14,556 report turnover in their most recent accounts (Bizzy, October 2026). So the balance sheet is filled in for hundreds of thousands of companies, the turnover line for only a small group.

Source: Bizzy, October 2026. Count of active Belgian companies based on their most recent annual accounts. Each row is a separate count; the rows do not add up to a total.

If you want to select companies by turnover, you work with the turnover figure where it has been filed. For the rest, use gross margin, balance sheet total or headcount as your measure of size.

The three figures you should read

You do not need to be an accountant. Three questions, three places in the document, and you know more than most of the competitors who call.

1. Can they pay? Look at equity (code 10/15). That is the difference between everything the company owns and everything it owes, and it sits at the top of the liabilities side of the balance sheet. If it is negative, debts exceed assets and the company is living on credit from its creditors. That happens more often than you think: 84,787 active Belgian companies have negative equity in their most recent accounts, against 504,261 with positive equity (Bizzy, October 2026). If it is positive but much smaller than a year earlier, either the year showed a loss or money went out to shareholders as a dividend or capital reduction; the result under point 2 tells you which. Always compare with the previous financial year, which is shown alongside the current one.

2. Do they make money? Look at the result, and at gross margin. The result for the financial year (code 9904) sits at the bottom of the income statement: profit or loss after tax. One year says little. Pull two or three sets of accounts from Consult and put the results side by side. With an abbreviated or micro model, use gross margin (code 9900) as your measure of the size and growth of the business, since turnover is usually not there. A gross margin that grows three years running usually points to a growing business, turnover figure or not; it can also rise because of lower purchasing costs or one-off other operating income, so read it together with the result.

3. Will they get through the next twelve months? Look at the short term. The balance sheet shows current assets (stock, receivables due within one year, cash) and, against them, debts due within one year. If short-term debts exceed current assets, that is a reason to ask about liquidity, however handsome the profit. In sectors that get paid up front that is normal; in a business that buys on credit it is not, and that is the company that will ask you to stretch payment terms.

One more thing worth taking with you: the average headcount in full-time equivalents (code 9087) is in the notes, with the detail in the social balance sheet. It is often a more useful measure of company size than what LinkedIn shows.

What the annual accounts do not tell you

Be honest about the document's limits, because they decide how you use it.

It contains no contact persons for sales. The directors are listed, as they are in the KBO and the Official Gazette, but who makes the purchase is nowhere. It lags behind, as you saw above. It says nothing about what is happening now: no vacancies, no new branch, no board change last month. For that you look at the Official Gazette and at the signals a tool tracks for you.

And, as we have seen, for many small companies it says nothing about turnover. Anyone who wants a list of "companies with more than 5 million in turnover" therefore filters on filed turnover where it exists and fills the gaps with balance sheet total and headcount. How that plays out for bought lists in general is in what an address list costs and what you may do with it (Dutch market).

From figures to conversation

The annual accounts are not the goal. They are a filter and a conversation opener. Three ways to use them that work in practice.

As a filter before you call. Negative equity, a striking off in the KBO or accounts missing for more than a year: those are companies you take out of a prospect list, or approach with a different question. How to build such a list is in the prospecting guide for Belgium; how to decide who is worth following up is in lead qualification.

As a trigger. A gross margin growing three years running, a capital increase in the Official Gazette, a new director: those are reasons to call today rather than next quarter. A conversation that opens with "I saw you grew strongly last year" is a different conversation from one that opens with a pitch.

As a check on the rest of your data. Does the size a database gives you match the headcount in the social balance sheet? If not, you know which source to distrust.

You can also have those three steps automated. Bizzy holds the Belgian annual-account figures from the filings at the National Bank, such as equity, debt ratio, turnover where filed and headcount in full-time equivalents, together with the data from the KBO and the Official Gazette and enriched with online sources. You filter by legal form, incorporation date, turnover, equity, debt ratio and headcount, build a prospect list that way and export it or send it to HubSpot. New publications in the Official Gazette can be followed as signals. How Bizzy compares with other tools for the Belgian market is in our comparison of Belgian prospecting tools.

Read next: the best B2B prospecting tools for European sales teams and how to generate B2B leads in Europe.

Read next: how to search the Belgian Official Gazette, and what each publication category tells you.

Read next: is this company financially healthy? Solvency, liquidity and profitability from the annual accounts.

Read next: How to check whether a Belgian company is bankrupt, and Belgian bankruptcies in numbers.

Read next: How to find a Belgian company's statutes and incorporation deed.

The shareholder structure in the annual accounts is one of the few public sources on ownership since the UBO register closed to the public: the Belgian UBO register.

When accounts are missing, the reason matters: the filing deadline, the late-filing surcharges and what a late filer tells you.

Two lines worth knowing in detail: gross margin and how to calculate EBITDA from the annual accounts.

See how Bizzy works for you

In Bizzy you find the annual accounts, the KBO data and the Official Gazette publications of every Belgian company in one place, and you filter all companies at once by equity, debt ratio or filed turnover. Book a demo with our team, or try Bizzy yourself.

Book a demo Start your free trial

Frequently asked questions

How do I get Belgian annual accounts for free?

Through the National Bank of Belgium's Consult tool: search by name or enterprise number, pick the financial year and open the file as PDF, XBRL or CSV. No account or payment is needed. The National Bank makes the annual accounts available free of charge to anyone interested.

How do I get annual accounts from before 1999?

Order a copy from the National Bank using the order form, with the enterprise number and the financial year you need: 5 euros per document by email, or 0.25 euros per printed page on paper, excluding postage. Filings from 1 January 1999 onwards are free in Consult.

When must Belgian annual accounts be filed?

Within thirty days of approval by the general meeting and at the latest seven months after the end of the financial year. For a financial year closing on 31 December, that is the end of July of the following year at the latest.

What happens if a company does not file its annual accounts?

A surcharge (2026 amounts) climbing from 151 or 504 euros from the ninth month to 453 or 1,510 euros from the thirteenth month, depending on the model. After three consecutive years the KBO can strike the company off ex officio, and any interested party can ask for judicial dissolution. Damage to third parties is also presumed to result from the failure to file, unless the company proves otherwise.

Why is there no turnover in the annual accounts?

Because small and micro companies may use the abbreviated or micro model, in which turnover is an optional disclosure. The first line of their income statement is gross margin (code 9900). Only the full model, mandatory for large companies, contains turnover as a required line. Of the 582,021 active companies with a balance sheet total in Bizzy, 14,556 report turnover (Bizzy, October 2026).

What counts as a small company in Belgium?

A company that on its balance sheet date exceeds no more than one of three thresholds: 50 full-time employees, 11,250,000 euros turnover excluding VAT, 6,000,000 euros balance sheet total. A micro company stays under 10 employees, 900,000 euros turnover and 450,000 euros balance sheet total, exceeding at most one of them. Those amounts apply to financial years from 1 January 2024.

Which three figures should a salesperson read?

Equity, to see whether the company owns more than it owes. The result for the financial year and, for small companies, gross margin, across two or three years side by side. And the ratio of current assets to debts due within one year, as a first indication of whether the company gets through the next twelve months.

Can I open annual accounts in Excel?

Yes. Download the CSV in Consult, which exists for accounts filed in XBRL since 4 April 2022. For older filings there is XBRL, since 2 April 2007 for companies that filed in that format, and otherwise only the PDF.

What is the difference between annual accounts and consolidated accounts?

The annual accounts cover one legal entity. The consolidated accounts combine the figures of a parent company and its subsidiaries. Both are free in Consult.

Where do I find the annual accounts of a non-profit association?

Larger associations and foundations file with the National Bank and appear in Consult. Small non-profit associations (vzw) that keep simplified accounts file with the registry of the enterprise court. More in the annual accounts of a non-profit (vzw).

How quickly do new annual accounts appear in Consult?

The National Bank publishes a set of accounts shortly after the payment for the filing has been validated. The deadline for filing is seven months after the end of the financial year.

Are Belgian annual accounts public?

Yes, for every company that has to file them. The National Bank of Belgium publishes them free of charge through Consult, searchable by name or enterprise number. Sole traders do not file annual accounts, so for them there is nothing to consult.

What is in a set of annual accounts?

A balance sheet, an income statement, the notes and, for companies with staff, the social balance sheet. Small companies may use the abbreviated or micro model, in which turnover is an optional line. So for most small Belgian companies you will find gross margin and the balance sheet total, but no turnover figure.

Sources

• Bizzy, October 2026: count of active Belgian companies based on their most recent annual accounts (balance sheet total, turnover, equity, debt ratio)

• National Bank of Belgium, Consult, accessed 23 October 2026

• National Bank of Belgium, Consult, bpost company page (0214.596.464), accessed 23 October 2026

• National Bank of Belgium, Ordering a copy of annual accounts, accessed 23 October 2026

• National Bank of Belgium, Extract, accessed 22 October 2026

• National Bank of Belgium, Subscription terms for web services, 2026 version, accessed 23 October 2026

• National Bank of Belgium, The Central Balance Sheet Office in figures, accessed 23 October 2026

• National Bank of Belgium, When to file?, accessed 23 October 2026

• National Bank of Belgium, Surcharge and appeal procedure, accessed 23 October 2026

• National Bank of Belgium, Size criteria for companies, accessed 23 October 2026

• National Bank of Belgium, Central Balance Sheet Office FAQ, accessed 23 October 2026

• FPS Economy, KBO Public Search, record 0214.596.464, accessed 23 October 2026

• Dutch Chamber of Commerce (KVK), Ordering annual accounts, accessed 23 October 2026

Written by Arthur Cremers at Bizzy, which builds B2B company data from the official registers and enriches it with online sources such as company websites, news sites, LinkedIn and Google Maps.