The short answer
The Trends Gazellen (Trends Gazelles in French) is the yearly ranking of the fastest-growing companies in Belgium, run by the business weeklies Trends and Trends-Tendances of Roularta Media Group. Nobody applies: every company that files annual accounts with the National Bank is screened, and Trends Business Information ranks them on five years of growth in added value, staff and cash flow, in absolute and percentage terms. A company must have created at least 10 jobs since it was founded, and it competes in one of three classes: small (added value under 1 million euros), medium (1 to 5 million) or large (over 5 million). Trends names 250 Gazelles per province, with a separate ranking for Brussels, and publishes each ranking the day after its regional event. In 2026 those events ran from 11 February to 8 April.
The criteria and dates below come from the official trendsgazellen.be and trendsgazelles.be pages, read on 1 October 2026.
What the Trends Gazellen are
The Gazellen is a ranking, not a competition you enter. Trends compiles it from filed accounts, sends each nominated company a letter and an email, and holds an award evening per region. The company at the top of each class becomes Trends Gazellen Ambassador for a year; every other company on the list gets a "nominated Trends Gazelle" diploma. A nomination cannot be refused, because it follows from the figures the company has already filed.
The 2026 edition was the 25th. The Dutch-language edition covers the five Flemish provinces and Brussels; the French-language Trends Gazelles covers the five Walloon provinces and Brussels. Together they span the whole country, province by province.
When it is published
Each region has its own evening, and the full ranking goes online on the Gazellen website the day after. The printed ranking follows in Trends or Trends-Tendances the week after the event. The 2026 calendar:
Region | Event 2026 | Edition |
|---|---|---|
Brussels | 11 February | Dutch and French |
Walloon Brabant | 12 February | French |
East Flanders | 25 February | Dutch |
Hainaut | 4 March | French |
Flemish Brabant | 11 March | Dutch |
Antwerp | 18 March | Dutch |
Luxembourg | 19 March | French |
Limburg | 25 March | Dutch |
West Flanders | 1 April | Dutch |
Namur and Liège | 8 April (joint event) | French |
Dates for the next edition were not published when we checked.
How companies are selected
Step | Rule |
|---|---|
Who is screened | Every company that files its annual accounts with the National Bank of Belgium. No application. |
Size class | Small: added value under 1 million euros. Medium: 1 to 5 million euros. Large: over 5 million euros. |
Growth criteria | Growth in added value, in staff and in cash flow, each measured in absolute terms and as a percentage |
Period | The last five financial years; for the 2026 edition, 2024 compared with 2020 |
Minimum | At least 10 jobs created since the company was founded |
Editorial check | The Trends newsroom checks that each company has enough operational independence |
Result | 250 Gazelles per province, split over the three classes |
Two details matter if you want to use the list. First, the size classes are based on added value, not on headcount or turnover, so a "small" Gazelle can still employ dozens of people. Second, the 2020 to 2024 window comes from the Trends dossier for West Flanders; the official site only says "the last five financial years". Either way, a ranking published in early 2026 describes growth that ended in 2024.
Why fast growers make good prospects
A company that added ten or more jobs and grew its added value for five years has outgrown something. New people need laptops, software seats, desks, cars, payroll and training. More volume means new suppliers, a second site, or a first finance or HR hire who will review every contract the founder signed. Growth is one of the few firmographic facts that also says something about timing, which is why headcount growth in the filed accounts sits among the eight B2B buying signals worth tracking.
A size ranking tells you something different. The largest companies in Belgium are big and stable; a Gazelle is usually a mid-sized company that is changing, with a management team that can still decide quickly.
How to use the Gazellen as a prospect list
Pick your provinces and class. Start with the provinces you actually cover. The classes are set by added value, not headcount, so pick the class that matches your customer size and check staff numbers separately.
Check fit before timing. A growing company outside your target sector or size is still not a prospect. Filter on sector, size and region first.
Look for a current signal. The ranking is up to two years behind. Check whether the company is hiring now; how to find Belgian companies that are hiring covers the sources. A new decision-maker or a new site is just as useful.
Open with the business, not the award. Every nominee hears from suppliers after the evening. "You added 40 people in four years; how are you handling onboarding?" works better than congratulations.
Keep the limits in mind: 250 names per province is a short list, it only includes companies that created at least 10 jobs, and your competitors read the same ranking the same week.
Build your own growth list from filed accounts
You can apply the same logic to your own segment, all year round, with the accounts every Belgian company files at the National Bank. Which figures you can use depends on which accounts model the company files.
Metric | Where it is | Availability |
|---|---|---|
Average headcount (FTE) | Social balance sheet | Filed on every model by companies with staff |
Gross margin | Income statement, line 9900 | Mandatory on micro and abbreviated accounts |
Turnover | Income statement, line 70 | Optional on micro and abbreviated accounts, standard only on full accounts |
Profit and depreciation | Income statement | On every model; together a rough proxy for cash flow |
Turnover is the figure most people want and the one small companies most often leave out; why Belgian company revenue is often missing explains the rules. For a growth list, headcount and gross margin are the reliable pair. A simple method:
Define your segment: sector, region and a size band.
Pull four or five years of filed figures per company.
Calculate growth in FTE and gross margin, both in absolute numbers and as a percentage, as Trends does. A company going from 2 to 6 staff triples; one going from 80 to 120 adds more jobs.
Set a floor, for example at least 10 FTE added, and rank within each size band so small and large companies do not compete on the same scale.
Check the most recent filing date. Accounts can be more than a year old, so pair the list with a live signal.
For which lines to read and how to interpret them, see how to read Belgian annual accounts.
Doing this by hand works for a few dozen companies. For a whole segment, Bizzy shows four years of filed figures per legal entity from the National Bank (revenue where filed, gross margin and headcount) and lets you filter Belgian companies on headcount growth, next to register data from the KBO and publications from the Official Gazette. The resulting list can go straight into HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Teamleader Focus or Odoo. You can start free; plans are on the pricing page.
Frequently asked questions
What are the Trends Gazellen? The yearly ranking of the fastest-growing companies per Belgian province, published by Trends and Trends-Tendances (Roularta Media Group) and based on growth in added value, staff and cash flow over five financial years.
How do you become a Trends Gazelle? You do not apply. Every company that files accounts with the National Bank is screened automatically; it must have created at least 10 jobs since it was founded and pass an editorial check on operational independence.
Does it cost anything to be a Trends Gazelle? No. Each nominee gets one free ticket to its regional event; extra tickets cost 99 euros excluding VAT per person, with at most four people per company.
Where can I find the full Trends Gazellen ranking? On the Gazellen website the day after each regional event, and in Trends or Trends-Tendances the week after.
Photo: the Port House in Antwerp at dusk, Edison McCullen, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons