🇧🇪 Business register in Belgium

General Overview

Belgium offers a moderately open and structured environment for accessing company data and documents, combining centralized official registers with modern digital platforms. The country has made significant progress in recent years in publishing legal and financial information online. However, practical access remains scattered across several systems, and some datasets—especially UBO (Ultimate Beneficial Ownership) records—are only accessible under specific conditions.

The core infrastructure revolves around the Banque Carrefour des Entreprises (BCE) and the Moniteur belge, both of which provide foundational information on company identity, legal events, and financial disclosures. For UBOs, access is restricted and managed through Belgium's Ministry of Finance.

This multi-register setup, while rich in content, can pose challenges in consolidating corporate profiles for compliance teams. It also introduces complexity for KYB (Know Your Business) and AML (Anti-Money Laundering) workflows without automated or API-based solutions.

Official Registers

Banque Carrefour des Entreprises (BCE)

Also known as Crossroads Bank for Enterprises, this is the official Belgian business register. It provides access to all registered companies, including basic company information, details about company directors, and links to other official registers where you can find documents such as the articles of association or financial statements. The register is updated daily.

Important note: Each company’s profile page in the register is timestamped with a specific date. Exporting this page as a PDF allows you to retain a verifiable record of the information as it appeared on that date.

Moniteur Belge

It corresponds to the “official gazette” — the platform where all official company announcements are published. It is operated under the authority of the Ministry of Justice.

The Belgian Official Gazette (Moniteur Belge) and its contents — including company articles of association, amendments, notices, and other legal filings — are freely accessible to the public.

Banque Nationale de Belgique (BNB)

This institution centralizes all financial statements filed by legal entities. You can search by company name or registration number. The good news is that the financial statements are standardized — they follow a consistent structure, which significantly simplifies data extraction and analysis.

Registre des Bénéficiaires Effectifs (UBO register)

This register is managed by the federal public service for finance (Service Public Fédéral des Finances). Registration requirements are strict: all legal persons, including associations, are mandated to file and update information. However, this register is very hard to access. Only legal entites obliged within AML regulations and having a legal presence in Belgium can access UBO information (a situation comparable to that of neighbouring Netherlands).

Registration Requirements by Legal Entity Type

For sole proprietors

The registration requirements are standard: every sole proprietor must register with the Crossroads Bank for Enterprises, which then assigns them a unique company number. They are also required to report any changes, such as a change of business address.

However, they are not obligated to file financial statements. Additionally, they are not subject to requirements related to company statutes or UBO (Ultimate Beneficial Owner) declarations, as these do not apply to sole proprietors by definition.

For associations

Good news: registration requirements in Belgium are relatively strict. In practice, they are largely similar to those applied to legal entities.

This means they must register with the Crossroads Bank for Enterprises, maintain up-to-date articles of association in the official register, file annual financial statements, and declare their Ultimate Beneficial Owners (i.e. individuals who hold decision-making power).

For companies

The obligations for companies are fairly standard: they must be registered in the official register, keep their articles of association up to date, file annual financial statements, and declare their Ultimate Beneficial Owners (UBOs).

A few important notes:

• Companies have up to seven months after the end of their financial year to file their financial statements — six months to prepare and approve them, followed by a maximum of 30 days to submit the filing.
• Certain types of companies, such as general partnerships (Société en Nom Collectif – SNC) and limited partnerships (Société en Commandite – SComm), are exempt from the filing requirement. However, the vast majority of other companies are subject to this obligation and risk substantial fines for non-compliance.

With Semaphore

Semaphore offers a streamlined, API-based access to Belgian company information, aggregating data from multiple public sources to provide a unified corporate view for compliance use cases.

Available Data

Company Profile:

• Legal name and trade name
• Enterprise number: 10 digit number
• Legal form
• Address
• Status (active, dissolved, etc.)
• Sector (NACE code, 5-digit granularity)

For info: the social capital is missing. It is not displayed in the BCE extract and there is no requirements to display this info in the status.

Legal Representatives:

• Names and positions (from published legal acts)
• Source: BCE, Notarial filings and Moniteur Belge

Ultimate Beneficial Owners (UBO):

• Semaphore has access to UBO register extract thanks to partnership with regulated authorities.
• UBO data are available

Available Documents

Semaphore allows access to key KYB documents from Belgium:

🔍 Want to accelerate your KYB workflows in Belgium?
Semaphore provides a seamless API to automate data retrieval, document ordering, and compliance-ready integrations.