Where and when to find the annual accounts of a Belgian company

Where to consult them

The National Bank of Belgium publishes the filed accounts on the Consult application of the Central Balance Sheet Office: consult.cbso.nbb.be. Anyone can consult there the annual accounts filed with the National Bank since 1999, with the identification data of the legal person and the references of every set of accounts published.

Three formats are available:

• the PDF of every filing, since 1 January 1999;
• the XBRL file for every set of accounts filed in that format, since 2 April 2007;
• a CSV file for the accounts filed in XBRL since 4 April 2022.

The search is done by enterprise number or by name. The enterprise number is found at the Crossroads Bank for Enterprises, on invoices and in the legal notices of websites.

The scale: the 2025 figures

According to the National Bank, the Central Balance Sheet Office received in 2025:

• 593,323 annual accounts, concerning 567,501 legal persons;
• 582,566 filings from companies and 10,757 from associations and foundations;
• 46% in XBRL format, 54% in PDF; 99% according to the standard models;
• and Consult recorded 4.3 million consultations.

The format matters to the reader: an XBRL filing provides every amount with its heading code, usable without re-entry; a PDF filing is sometimes an image, harder to read automatically.

When they are filed

The calendar is set by the Code of Companies and Associations:

1. The accounts must be submitted for approval to the general meeting within six months of the closing of the financial year (art. 3:1).
2. They are filed with the National Bank within thirty days of their approval and at the latest seven months after the closing date (art. 3:10).

For a financial year closed on 31 December, the accounts therefore arrive by the end of July of the following year at the latest; many companies file in June and July. In practice, in October, the latest available balance sheet of a company closing on 31 December is nine to ten months old.

What a filing costs

Filing fees depend on the format and the medium. They are indexed every 1 January on the consumer price index (Royal Decree of 29 April 2019, art. 3:70 and 3:188). 2026 rates for companies:

Format	XBRL	PDF
Full	EUR 379.50	EUR 449.70
Abridged	EUR 89.40	EUR 159.50
Micro	EUR 67.00	EUR 137.30
Corrective filing	EUR 86.00	EUR 86.00

What lateness costs

A company that files late pays a late filing contribution (CCA, art. 3:13), due from the first day of the ninth month following the year end. 2026 amounts:

Period after the year end	Abridged or micro format	Full format
Ninth month	EUR 151	EUR 504
Tenth to twelfth month	EUR 227	EUR 755
From the thirteenth month	EUR 453	EUR 1,510

Other sanctions exist: the presumption that the damage of third parties results from the non-filing (art. 3:10), judicial dissolution at the request of any interested party or the public prosecutor after a period of seven months following the year end (art. 2:74), and ex officio striking off at the Crossroads Bank after three consecutive financial years without filing (Code of Economic Law, art. III.42).

A repeated filing delay is a signal in itself: it often reflects difficult administrative management, sometimes financial difficulties.

Who does not have to file

Article 3:9 of the CCA exempts from filing only general partnerships and limited partnerships that are small companies, and those which, without being small, have only natural persons as partners with unlimited liability. Natural persons carrying on a self-employed activity do not file annual accounts.

Beyond the filing: statistics

The Central Balance Sheet Office publishes on NBB.Stat statistics of the annual accounts and financial ratios of companies, broken down by sector of activity (NACE-BEL 2008) and free to consult. Sector ratios are presented in quartiles, which allows a company to be placed within its branch. The National Bank also offers a paid company file that shows how a company's ratios evolve and how it compares with its sector.

The fastest way

Enter the enterprise number in FinScan: the latest filing is retrieved from the Central Balance Sheet Office, read, and its key headings presented with their code, to be checked in the official document.