How to look up a Belgian company's annual accounts (Central Balance Sheet Office)
Tips
The short answer
You look up a Belgian company's annual accounts for free in Consult, the application of the National Bank's Central Balance Sheet Office (Balanscentrale / Centrale des bilans). Search by enterprise number or name, open the list of filings and download each one as PDF (all accounts filed since 1 January 1999), XBRL (since 2 April 2007) or CSV (since 4 April 2022). Older accounts, filed between April 1978 and 1999, can be ordered for 5 euros per document by email. Companies must file within 30 days of approval by the general meeting and no later than seven months after the end of the financial year, so the most recent accounts usually appear in the summer or autumn after year end. Which figures you see depends on the model the company files: full, abbreviated or micro.
How to find the accounts, step by step
Find the enterprise number. If you only have a name, look it up in KBO Public Search first. The Belgian company register guide shows how.
Open Consult on the National Bank's website, in the Central Balance Sheet Office section. In the National Bank's words: "With the Consult application, anyone can consult annual accounts filed with the National Bank of Belgium (NBB) since 1999."
Search by enterprise number (most reliable) or by name, and open the company's record.
Pick the filing. Each filing has a reference, a financial year and a model. Download the PDF to read it, the XBRL or CSV to process the figures.
Read it. How to read Belgian annual accounts explains which lines to look at first.
What is available, and what it costs
Channel | What you get | Price |
|---|---|---|
Consult | Each filing since 1999: PDF since 1 January 1999, XBRL since 2 April 2007, CSV since 4 April 2022 | Free |
Copies of older accounts | Accounts filed between April 1978 and 1 January 1999, on request with the enterprise number and filing reference | 5 euros per document by email, or 0.25 euros per page by post plus postage |
Extract | Figures from many companies selected by criteria, exportable to Office applications | 500 euros a year, except for educational and public institutions |
Web services | Filings and structured data by API | Free; "Improved Data" 3,300 euros a year |
Source: National Bank of Belgium, Central Balance Sheet Office pages, read on 30 September 2026. More on the API route in KBO API compared.
When new accounts appear
The National Bank sets two deadlines that run together: accounts must be filed "within 30 days of their approval by the general meeting" and "no later than 7 months after the closing date of the financial year". For a company whose year ends on 31 December, that usually means filing by the end of July, so fresh accounts for the previous year appear in Consult from spring to late summer.
Late filers pay an indexed surcharge. From 1 January 2026 it is 151 euros for small companies and 504 euros for others from the ninth month after year end, 227 or 755 euros from the tenth to twelfth month, and 453 or 1,510 euros from the thirteenth month. A company that files very late is itself a signal worth noting.
Who files, and which model
"Most legal entities active in Belgium, including companies, associations, foundations and health insurance funds, must file annual accounts," according to the National Bank, around 500,000 sets a year. Sole traders working in their own name do not file annual accounts, so you will not find them in Consult. Small non-profit associations file at the registry of the enterprise court rather than at the National Bank.
Model | Who uses it | What you will and will not find |
|---|---|---|
Full | Large companies: more than one of 50 employees (FTE), 11.25 million euros turnover or 6 million euros balance sheet total | Detailed income statement with turnover, extensive notes, management report |
Abbreviated | Small companies below those thresholds | Balance sheet and a shortened income statement; turnover is often not disclosed |
Micro | Micro companies: no more than one of 10 FTE, 900,000 euros turnover or 450,000 euros balance sheet total | The simplest set, with minimal notes |
Thresholds for financial years starting from 1 January 2024. A company changes category only when it crosses the thresholds for two consecutive years. Because most Belgian companies are small, many filings show no turnover; why revenue is often missing explains what to use instead.
When you need it for many companies
Consult works one company at a time. For a territory or a target list, the options are the paid Extract application, the National Bank's web services, or a data provider that has already loaded and structured the filings. Bizzy's legal entity records, for example, show four years of figures from the filed accounts, with the filed PDF per year, for every Belgian company that files.
No accounts for the latest year? The filing deadline and late fines explains when they are due and what a late filing signals.
Looking for a Dutch company instead? How to get annual accounts from the KVK.
Once you have the PDF: the balance sheet explained and the income statement line by line.
Frequently asked questions
Where can I see a Belgian company's annual accounts for free? In Consult, the free application of the National Bank's Central Balance Sheet Office. It holds every filing since 1999 as PDF, with XBRL since 2007 and CSV since 2022.
How do I get accounts filed before 1999? Order a copy from the National Bank with the enterprise number and filing reference: 5 euros per document by email, or 0.25 euros per page by post.
When must a Belgian company file its annual accounts? Within 30 days of approval by the general meeting, and no later than seven months after the end of the financial year.
Why does the accounts filing show no turnover? Small companies file an abbreviated or micro model in which turnover is often not disclosed. Only large companies must show it in their income statement.
Do sole traders file annual accounts? No. Self-employed people working as natural persons do not file annual accounts with the National Bank.
Photo: the historic building of the National Bank of Belgium in Brussels, Boubloub, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons