Wholesale trade

NACE 46473 · division 46 Wholesale trade

Current registrations 63division 46: 61,503

Starters, 12 months 2,772division 46 · 4.5 per 100 · Belgium 7.5

Bankruptcies, 5 years 34.76% of the registrations · Belgium 1.61%

Employment (FTE) 236,141division 46 · financial year 2025

Median age 15.0 yearsdivision 46 · Belgium 10.7 years

Filed accounts of the division

NACE division 46 · financial year 2025 · 33,684 filed annual accounts

Median solvency

42.3%

Belgium 46.2%

Median net result

€17,273

Belgium €16,569

Median equity

€208,400

Belgium €98,595

Loss-making

28.7%

Belgium 26.7%

Negative equity

13.4%

Belgium 12.4%

Median return on equity

9.9%

Belgium 16.0%

Median liquidity

1.69

Belgium 1.66

Staff cost per FTE in NACE division 46

9,639 employers

Median

€64,900

Belgium €61,400

Middle half

€51,300 to €84,400

half of the employers lie between

Place among sectors

45 of 78

sectors with a median staff cost per FTE, highest first

By size class
Size	Median	Middle half	Employers
fewer than 10 FTE	€60,400	€47,700 to €78,500	6,074
10 to 49 FTE	€70,000	€57,700 to €89,000	2,909
50 to 249 FTE	€84,000	€67,400 to €119,500	557
250 FTE or more	€80,100	€64,800 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

Bankruptcies, 12 months

466

division 46 · 7.6 per 1,000 registrations · Belgium 5.5

Recent bankruptcies

Date	Company
23-10-2026	RS COLLECTIONS BE 0544.935.904
02-07-2025	MILANI CARPETS IMPORT BE 0803.098.236
07-04-2025	VEPEINT BE 0750.486.723

Every bankruptcy in division 46, last 90 days

Running bankruptcies in the sector

NACE division 46

Number

1,334

Half have run longer than

23 months

Belgium: 20 months

Longer than three years

34%

Belgium: 31%

Measured nationally: Of 108,424 bankruptcies of legal entities across Belgium, 49% were closed within five years for insufficient assets and 28% after liquidation, 3% were withdrawn. After five years, 20% were still open. Half had ended after 26 months (a quarter after 15, three quarters after 51 months).

This counts companies with this main activity in the register on 1 November 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

Spread across the country

by region and province · 58 of 63 enterprises with a registered office on file

Flanders 47 · 81.0%
Wallonia 8 · 13.8%
Brussels 3 · 5.2%

West Flanders WVL 25

East Flanders OVL 4

Antwerp ANT 15

Flemish Brabant VLB 1

Limburg LIM 2

Brussels BRU 3

Hainaut HAI 2

Walloon Brabant WBR 1

Namur NAM 3

Liège LIE 2

Luxembourg LUX 0

fewer moremax 25

This sector's balance sheets on the map, by municipality and down to the address

Largest employers

NACE division 46 · staff from the latest accounts

1 TOYOTA MOTOR EUROPEEvere 2,787 FTEfinancial year 2026
2 UCB PHARMAAnderlecht 1,961 FTEfinancial year 2025
3 DECATHLON BELGIUMEvere 1,734 FTEfinancial year 2025
4 ACTIEFLummen 1,570 FTEfinancial year 2025
5 H & M HENNES & MAURITZBrussels 1,318 FTEfinancial year 2025

Foreign control in NACE division 46

45,503 registered companies

Companies with a foreign parent

2.0%

905 of 45,503; Belgium 0.3%

Staff at those companies

25%

50,870 of 204,151 FTE; Belgium 15%

Main parent countries: Netherlands (206), Germany (128) and France (118).Show on the map by municipality

Subsidies in this sector

per register · legal entities with an enterprise number

Flemish subsidies €349.3m awarded 6,719 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 €531.5m attributed share 96 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

Insights on Wholesale trade

The number of starters per 100 companies in NACE division 46 is lower than that of 72% of the 87 NACE divisions with this figure.

This sector's historical share is higher than that of 98% of the 88 NACE divisions with this figure.

The median bankruptcy probability in NACE division 46 is 0.4%, against 0.2% for Belgium as a whole. It is computed over 39,186 scored companies.

The comparison with Belgium as a whole and with the other divisions is as of 01-11-2026 05:30.

Method and sources

Every company registered today counts under its main activities in the KBO. Establishment units do not count. The count follows the NACE 2025 classification, the version in which code 46473 exists.

The historical share is the share of current registrations for which a bankruptcy opening was published in the past five years. A company with more than one main activity counts in each of those sectors. The historical share is not a future bankruptcy probability.

The comparison with Belgium as a whole and with the other NACE divisions rests on an overview of every division, counted again each night. Each division is counted in the version of the NACE classification in which it exists. A standing such as "higher than 80%" compares with the other divisions that have the figure. A division's bankruptcy probability is the median over its companies with a score. Their number is given with the figure.

The filed-accounts figures cover the whole NACE division 46, not only NACE 46473. There are too few filed annual accounts per five-digit code to compute them separately. Each median is the value of the middle company, computed over the division's annual accounts of financial year 2025, and is shown only from 30 accounts. A share (loss-making, negative equity) counts that year's accounts with that trait.