To consult the annual accounts of a Belgian company, go to consult.cbso.nbb.be: the Consult application of the Central Balance Sheet Office of the National Bank of Belgium gives access, free of charge, to all accounts filed since 1999. A search by company number (CBE) or by name is enough, and the document downloads as a PDF.
Consulting is easy. Interpreting is much harder. A set of annual accounts must be read with three precautions that most readers overlook: the time lag, the comparability of financial years and the type of format filed. Here is the manual, then the traps.
What you find on Consult
The Central Balance Sheet Office collects the annual accounts that Belgian companies, associations and foundations are required to file. The Consult application gives access to the annual and consolidated accounts filed since 1 January 1999, viewable as PDFs. More technical users can also download the structured data, available in XBRL format for filings since April 2007 and in CSV format for filings since April 2022.
In a filing, you find the balance sheet, the income statement, the notes and the social balance sheet, depending on the format used. It is a goldmine of public information: equity, debts, cash, workforce, result.
What you will not find there: self-employed individuals operating as natural persons, who do not file accounts, and the turnover of most small companies, which file an abridged format. We come back to this below.
Trap 1: you are reading the past
A company must file its accounts within thirty days of their approval by the general meeting, and at the latest seven months after the end of the financial year. For a 31 December year-end, the accounts therefore reach the Central Balance Sheet Office by the end of July of the following year at the latest. Direct consequence: when you look up a company in the spring, its most recent available accounts often describe a situation that is twelve to eighteen months old.
Two reflexes follow. First, always check the closing date and the filing date, shown on the filing itself. Recurrent late filing is a signal in its own right: companies in difficulty file late, or stop filing altogether. Second, keep in mind that the situation may have changed since: a client that looked solid in its latest accounts may have deteriorated in the meantime. Annual accounts give you the trajectory, not the current position.
Trap 2: not all financial years look alike
Not all companies close their books on 31 December. Some have a shifted financial year, ending on 30 June or 30 September for example: their "2024 accounts" do not cover the same period as those of a company closing in December. A financial year can also last more or less than twelve months, in a first year of activity or after a change of closing date: comparing amounts without annualising then distorts the whole analysis.
Also check the scope: are you reading statutory accounts (the legal entity alone) or consolidated accounts (the whole group)? A Belgian subsidiary can look modest while backed by a powerful group, and the reverse exists too: a parent company whose real substance sits in its subsidiaries.
Trap 3: the abridged format does not tell everything
Most Belgian companies are small companies within the meaning of the Code of Companies and Associations, and file an abridged format: the income statement starts at the gross margin and turnover generally does not appear. Before concluding that a company "publishes nothing" or taking at face value a turnover figure estimated by a database, check the type of format, indicated on the first page of the filing. We devoted a full article to what the abridged format reveals and hides.
| Trap | The reflex |
|---|
| Accounts 12 to 18 months old | Check the closing date and the filing date |
| Recurrent late filing | Treat it as a warning signal in its own right |
| Shifted or atypical financial year | Compare comparable periods, annualise if needed |
| Statutory or consolidated | Identify the scope before judging the size |
| Abridged format | Do not look for turnover, analyse the balance sheet structure |
When a simple PDF is no longer enough
Consulting a PDF gives you a raw snapshot. As soon as the decision matters, granting significant payment terms, choosing a critical supplier, assessing a competitor or preparing an acquisition, you need to move from consultation to analysis: several financial years put into perspective, restatements (shareholder current accounts, exceptional items), structure and liquidity ratios, a comparison with the sector.
To learn how to read these documents yourself, start with our guide to understanding a balance sheet. To quickly get a structured reading of a specific company, our tool lets you check the financial health of a Belgian company from its CBE number. And when the stakes justify an expert eye, our financial diagnostic for SMEs turns this public data into an action plan.
Your clients and suppliers file their accounts. Do you read them?
SAGORA reads the annual accounts filed with the Central Balance Sheet Office the way a business leader should be able to: balance sheet structure, net cash, working capital requirement, trajectory over several financial years and sector comparison. A structured analysis that surfaces tensions before they become bad surprises.
Discover SAGORA financial analysisSagora Finance, editorial line.
Sources: Consult application and available formats (accounts filed since 1 January 1999 as PDF, XBRL since April 2007, CSV since April 2022): Central Balance Sheet Office of the National Bank of Belgium (nbb.be); filing deadlines (thirty days after approval by the general meeting, at the latest seven months after the year-end): Code of Companies and Associations, as recalled by the Central Balance Sheet Office of the National Bank of Belgium (nbb.be).
Mathias Schmit
