How to read the annual accounts of a Belgian company

What the law calls "annual accounts"

The annual accounts of a Belgian company form a whole made of three documents:

• the balance sheet, which shows at the closing date what the company owns (assets) and how it is financed (equity and liabilities);
• the income statement, which retraces the year: income, expenses, and the resulting profit or loss;
• the notes, which detail and comment on certain items: movements in fixed assets, maturity of debts, guarantees given, headcount, overdue debts to the tax authorities and social security, off-balance-sheet rights and commitments.

The Code of Companies and Associations (CCA) sets the calendar. The accounts must be submitted for approval to the general meeting within six months of the closing of the financial year (art. 3:1). They are then filed by the management body with the National Bank of Belgium within thirty days of their approval and at the latest seven months after the closing date (art. 3:10).

The same article 3:10 adds a rule that matters to anyone dealing with the company: if the accounts have not been filed, the damage suffered by third parties is, unless proven otherwise, presumed to result from this omission.

Who files, and how many filings

Filing applies to most companies with legal personality. Article 3:9 of the CCA exempts 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.

The scale is considerable. According to figures published by the National Bank, the Central Balance Sheet Office received 593,323 annual accounts in 2025, concerning 567,501 entities, of which 582,566 from companies and 10,757 from associations and foundations. 46% were filed in the structured XBRL format and 54% in PDF. The consultation application recorded 4.3 million consultations over the year.

Three formats, depending on size

The Royal Decree of 29 April 2019 provides three formats of annual accounts: full, abridged and micro. The format depends on the size of the company within the meaning of articles 1:24 and 1:25 of the CCA.

The thresholds were raised by the law of 28 March 2024, which transposes Delegated Directive (EU) 2023/2775, for financial years starting after 31 December 2023 (CBN opinion 2024/07):

Criterion	Small company (art. 1:24)	Micro company (art. 1:25)
Average annual headcount	50 employees	10 employees
Annual turnover excl. VAT	EUR 11,250,000 (9,000,000 before)	EUR 900,000 (700,000 before)
Balance sheet total	EUR 6,000,000 (4,500,000 before)	EUR 450,000 (350,000 before)

Three rules of application, all recalled by CBN opinion 2024/07:

• a company only changes category if it exceeds more than one criterion;
• exceeding the thresholds, or falling back under them, must be observed over two consecutive financial years to take effect (deferred effect); by exception, only the new thresholds apply to the first financial year closed after 31 December 2023;
• a parent company assesses the criteria on a consolidated or aggregated basis, not on its own figures alone.

The full format is mandatory for companies that are not small. Small companies may file the abridged format, micro companies the micro format. Nothing prevents a small company from filing a full format.

What the abridged format changes

This is the point that surprises non-accountant readers most. In the abridged format, the income statement starts with the gross operating margin (heading 9900) instead of detailing turnover and purchases (Royal Decree of 29 April 2019, art. 93). Disclosing turnover (70) is optional, left to the company's discretion. The National Bank recalls it in its ratio definitions: for the abridged and micro formats, ratios based on turnover are only computed "if 70 > 0".

A missing turnover is therefore not a negative signal: it is the normal case for the majority of Belgian companies. The analysis then relies on the gross margin, the balance sheet, the result and cash.

The notes of the abridged format are also lighter: they only include the statements (movements in fixed assets, maturity of debts, guarantees, headcount, transactions with related parties) when they are of significant importance (art. 94).

Reading the balance sheet: the main blocks

The balance sheet always balances: total assets (20/58) equals total liabilities and equity (10/49). Every heading carries a code, identical for every company, which allows two balance sheets to be compared line by line.

Assets	Code	Liabilities and equity	Code
Formation expenses	20	Equity	10/15
Intangible fixed assets	21	Provisions and deferred taxes	16
Tangible fixed assets	22/27	Amounts payable after more than one year	17
Financial fixed assets	28	Amounts payable within one year	42/48
Fixed assets (total)	20/28	Accrued charges and deferred income	492/3
Stocks and contracts in progress	3	Amounts payable (total)	17/49
Amounts receivable within one year	40/41
Current investments	50/53
Cash at bank and in hand	54/58
Deferred charges and accrued income	490/1
Current assets (total)	29/58

Two readings overlap. From the top, one compares stable resources (equity, provisions, long-term debt) with fixed assets: that is working capital. From the bottom, one compares current assets with amounts payable within one year: that is liquidity. Both are developed in the guides on working capital and liquidity.

Reading the income statement

The income statement goes down from turnover to the final result:

Heading	Full format code	Abridged and micro code
Turnover	70	70 (optional)
Gross operating margin	(computed)	9900
Raw materials, goods, services and other goods	60, 61	60/61
Remuneration, social security costs and pensions	62	62
Depreciation and write-downs	630, 631/4, 635/8	631/4, 635/8
Operating profit (loss)	9901	9901
Financial charges	65	65
Income taxes	67/77	67/77
Profit (loss) for the year	9904	9904

Non-recurring income and charges (76A and 66A) deserve a look: a capital gain on the sale of a building inflates the result of the year without saying anything about the ordinary business. This is why the National Bank removes 76A and adds back 66A to the operating result in its margin ratios.

Reading the notes

The notes are often skipped, wrongly. They contain:

• the average headcount in full-time equivalents (9087 in the full and abridged formats, 1003 in the micro format), which gives the real size of the business;
• the maturity schedule of long-term debt and the debts secured by real guarantees;
• the overdue debts to the tax authorities and the social security office, a sign of cash strain;
• the off-balance-sheet rights and commitments (guarantees given, litigation, purchase commitments), which the IBR-IRE study on ratio analysis counts among the solvency elements not to be neglected.

A five-line reading method

1. Total assets (20/58): the size of the company.
2. Equity (10/15): positive or negative? What share of the total? Divided by total liabilities and equity, it gives solvency as the NBB defines it.
3. Cash (50/53 + 54/58): how much liquidity at the closing date?
4. Result for the year (9904): profit or loss, compared with the previous year, which the filing always contains.
5. Amounts payable within one year (42/48) against current assets: can the company pay what falls due?

These five lines are enough for a first reading. Ratios then sharpen the picture, and comparison with the sector puts it in context.

Benchmarking: sector statistics

An isolated figure says little. The Central Balance Sheet Office publishes sector statistics of ratios, presented in quartiles: for a given sector, the value under which 25% of companies sit, the median, and the value exceeded by 25% of them. The IBR-IRE study illustrates the method by placing each ratio of a company against the three quartiles of its sector. The National Bank also sells a "company file" that shows how a company's ratios evolve over several years and where it stands in its sector.

The classic pitfalls

• Confusing result and cash. A profit can be tied up in uncollected receivables; a loss can hide heavy depreciation with no cash outflow. The guide on cash flow makes the link.
• Forgetting the date. The accounts describe a situation that is seven to nineteen months old by the time you read them.
• Comparing different formats. A company in the abridged format does not necessarily publish its turnover: comparing its "sales" with those of a company in the full format makes no sense.
• Reading a single year. The filing always contains the previous year: the trend says more than the level.