Wholesale trade

NACE 4615

Current registrations1,708

Starters, 12 months · division 462,883

Employment (FTE) · division 46234,000

Median age · division 4615.0 years

In NACE division 46, 4.7 companies per 100 started in the past twelve months, against 7.5 nationally; that is lower than that of 71% of the 87 NACE divisions. Comparison: as of 11-10-2026 05:30.

Key figures for NACE division 46

financial year 2025 · median over 28,970 filed annual accounts

Median solvency

43.1%

lower than 57% of 79 divisions

Median equity

€182,410

higher than 61% of 79 divisions

Median net result

€15,196

lower than 53% of 79 divisions

Annual accounts in sample

28,970

Foreign control in NACE division 46

46,182 registered companies

Companies with a foreign parent

2.0%

902 of 46,182; Belgium 0.3%

Staff at those companies

25%

51,166 of 204,898 FTE; Belgium 15%

Mostly from Netherlands (205), Germany (128) and France (118).Show on the map by municipality

Staff cost per FTE in NACE division 46

9,655 employers

Median

€64,700

Belgium €61,300

Middle half

€51,200 to €84,100

half of the employers lie between

Place among sectors

45 of 78

by median staff cost per FTE

By size class
Size	Median	Middle half	Employers
fewer than 10 FTE	€60,300	€47,600 to €78,300	6,093
10 to 49 FTE	€69,900	€57,500 to €88,800	2,907
50 to 249 FTE	€83,600	€67,200 to €118,300	556
250 FTE or more	€80,100	€64,700 to €98,300	99

Employers with the highest staff cost per FTE in this division All sectors by staff cost In the Analysis workbench

Bankruptcies

past five years

Bankruptcies (5y)

Historical share

2.63%

Nationally, 1.60% of current registrations have a published bankruptcy opening in the past five years. This sector's historical share is higher than that of 81% of the 88 NACE divisions. The median bankruptcy probability in NACE division 46 is 0.4%, against 0.2% nationally, over 39,231 scored companies. Comparison: as of 11-10-2026 05:30.

Bankruptcies still running

NACE division 46

Running bankruptcies

1,330

Half have run longer than

23 months

Belgium: 21 months

Longer than three years

34%

Belgium: 31%

Measured nationally: Of 107,837 bankruptcies of legal entities across Belgium, 49% were closed within five years for insufficient assets and 28% after liquidation, 3% were withdrawn; 20% were still open after five years. Half had ended after 26 months (a quarter after 15, three quarters after 51 months).

Counts companies with this main activity in the register on 11 October 2026. The outcome itself is not measured by sector: the activity of a company that leaves the register after its bankruptcy is too often not kept to compare closed cases fairly.

Outcome by court and division

Regional split

by region · 1,049 of 1,708 enterprises with a registered office on file

Flanders 694 · 66.2%

Wallonia 225 · 21.4%

Brussels 123 · 11.7%

Unknown 7 · 0.7%

Recent bankruptcies in this sector

Date	Company
06-10-2026	ROCKSKIN BE 0743.596.456
23-04-2026	M.A. DECO BE 1005.409.453
09-04-2026	Moponami-Limbaya, Sandrine BE 1015.812.704 · sole trader · Willebroek
06-03-2026	GALEX BELGE BE 0819.941.394
11-02-2026	JAVI BE 0883.138.478
06-02-2026	Marti, Jean-Marie BE 0738.193.556 · sole trader · Knokke-Heist
26-01-2026	Buro Contact BE 0446.552.366
13-01-2026	ALCYO BE 0757.480.423

Geographic distribution

by province · based on the establishment address

West Flanders WVL 170

East Flanders OVL 128

Antwerp ANT 210

Flemish Brabant VLB 109

Limburg LIM 77

Brussels BRU 123

Hainaut HAI 72

Walloon Brabant WBR 50

Namur NAM 40

Liège LIE 53

Luxembourg LUX 10

fewer moremax 210

Where are this sector's balance sheets registered? By municipality, down to the address

Subsidies in this sector

per register · legal entities with an enterprise number

Flemish subsidies €349.4m awarded 6,733 recipients · 2022 to 2025 · largest: Dienstencheques
Federal transfers 66.3m amount as published 29 recipients · 2023 to 2025 · largest: Subsidie aan de Centrale Dienst voor Sociale en Culturele Actie
Wallonia-Brussels Federation €32.0m paid 31 recipients · 2021 to 2025 · largest: Subventions forfaitaires dans le fondamental
EU budget €525.1m attributed share 89 recipients · 2021 to 2025 · largest: Information and communication technology
EU research €52.8m eu contribution 83 recipients · 2007 to 2027 · largest: Horizon 2020

Explore every recipient in this sector

How these figures are counted

Current enterprise registrations are counted through their registered main activities; establishment units are excluded. Counted in the KBO's NACE 2025 nomenclature, the one in which code 4615 exists.

Share of currently registered companies with a published bankruptcy opening in the past five years. Registered main activities in the selected classification can overlap. This retrospective share is not a future bankruptcy probability.

The comparison with the country and with the other NACE divisions comes from a nightly overview of every division, each counted in the nomenclature in which it exists. A standing such as "higher than 80%" counts the other divisions that have the figure. The bankruptcy probability is the median of our nightly score over the division's companies that have one; the count is stated.

The key figures cover the whole NACE division 46, not NACE 4615 on its own: there are too few filed annual accounts per five-digit code to compute them separately. The middle company of the sector, based on all filed annual accounts.