Skip to content

Wholesale trade

Current registrations 459division 46: 61,487
Bankruptcies, 5 years, still registered 30.65% of the registrations · Belgium 1.68%

Bankruptcies

Recent bankruptcies

Date Company
12-08-2026 D'Huyvetter en zoon
BE 0415.835.733
29-05-2026 Collard, Marc
BE 0866.967.885 · sole trader · Crisnée
17-06-2025 Rampelberg-Somers
BE 0411.506.266

Every bankruptcy in division 46, last 90 days

Spread across the country

by region and province · 432 of 459 enterprises with a registered office on file · a sole trader has no published seat
  • Flanders 257 · 59.5%
  • Wallonia 93 · 21.5%
  • Brussels 33 · 7.6%
  • Abroad 49 · 11.3%
fewer moremax 75

Division 46: Wholesale trade

Filed accounts of the division

NACE division 46 · financial year 2025 · 33,898 filed annual accounts
Median solvency
42.2%
Belgium 46.1%
Median net result
€17,193
Belgium €16,490
Median equity
€206,897
Belgium €98,313
Loss-making
28.8%
Belgium 26.7%
Negative equity
13.4%
Belgium 12.4%
Median return on equity
9.9%
Belgium 15.9%
Median liquidity
1.69
Belgium 1.66
Filed late
39.2%
financial year 2024, 30,949 filings · Belgium 38.4%
Missing or 90 days late
6.4%
of 37,488 companies with annual accounts · Belgium 5.4%
Per financial year20182019202020212022202320242025
Median solvency --37.5%38.8%39.1%40.4%41.5%42.5%
Median net result --€16,074€21,759€19,274€15,967€14,364€14,805
Filed late 40.3%47.7%43.9%43.4%41.7%40.3%39.2%-

Hold your customer's or competitor's figures against them in the Sector benchmark

Bankruptcies per year in division 46

Per year201520162017201820192020202120222023202420252026
Bankruptcies803710738687722486417583541625634425
Jobs lost1,6291,6551,3611,2161,2401,0548901,0299351,3831,271931

2026 through September. Every bankruptcy, also of companies that have since left the register. Source: Statbel (Directorate-General Statistics), NACE classification of 2008.

Staff cost per FTE in NACE division 46

9,635 employers
Median
€64,900
Belgium €61,400
Middle half
€51,300 to €84,500
half of the employers lie between
Place among sectors
44 of 78
sectors with a median staff cost per FTE, highest first
By size class
SizeMedianMiddle halfEmployers
fewer than 10 FTE €60,500 €47,700 to €78,600 6,070
10 to 49 FTE €70,000 €57,700 to €89,100 2,911
50 to 249 FTE €84,000 €67,400 to €119,700 556
250 FTE or more €80,200 €64,700 to €98,300 98

Running bankruptcies in the sector

NACE division 46
Number
1,337
Half have run longer than
23 months
Belgium: 20 months
Longer than three years
34%
Belgium: 31%

Measured nationally: Of 108,725 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 11 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

Foreign control in NACE division 46

45,461 registered companies

Subsidies in this sector

per register · legal entities with an enterprise number
  • Flemish subsidies €266.7m awarded 6,710 recipients · 2022 to 2025 · largest: Dienstencheques
  • Wallonia-Brussels Federation €1.3m paid 17 recipients · 2021 to 2025 · largest: Conventions et contrats programmes indexés dans le domaine des centres culturels
  • Federal transfers 21.5m amount as published 14 recipients · 2023 to 2025 · largest: Ondersteuning aan de bijdrage van de organisaties van de civiele maatschappij en institutionele actoren in de realisatie van de doelen van de gemeenschappelijke strategische kaders (cf. art. 2.14.6 en 2.14.10 van de wetsbepalingen)
  • EU budget €531.5m attributed share 96 recipients · 2021 to 2025 · largest: Information and communication technology
  • EU research €52.9m EU contribution 83 recipients · 2007 to 2027 · largest: Horizon 2020

Explore every recipient in this sector

Insights on Wholesale trade

Inflow and structure. This activity holds 0.7% of the registrations of Wholesale trade.

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

Method and sources

Every company registered today counts under its main activities in the KBO. Establishment units do not count. Staff counts once, under the employer's first main activity, from its latest accounts and only where it fits the staff costs. The count follows the NACE 2008 classification, the version in which code 46741 exists.

The bankruptcies over five years count only companies still registered today, because the activity of a company that left the register is not kept. So they are fewer than the bankruptcies of those years, and the figure is not a probability for the future. Over twelve months the count is nearly complete, because a bankrupt company stays registered while its bankruptcy runs. A company with more than one main activity counts in each of those sectors.

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 "more than in 80%" compares with the other divisions that have the figure. A division's bankruptcy probability is the median over its companies with a score. Belgium here counts the 1,276,472 companies with a main activity, because only those belong to a division. The other 699,781 registrations publish no activity.