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Retail trade

Current registrations 529division 47: 115,449
Starters, 12 months 428.0 per 100 · Belgium 8.9
Bankruptcies, 12 months 11.9 per 1,000 registrations · Belgium 6.2
Employment (FTE) 37648 employers · latest accounts
Median age 16.8 yearsBelgium 8.1 years
E-invoicing via Peppol 90.9%480 of 528 companies in the Peppol Directory · Belgium 85.0%

Filed accounts

NACE 47530 · financial year 2025 · 313 filed annual accounts
Median solvency
36.1%
division 35.1% · Belgium 46.1%
Median net result
€12,909
division €11,256 · Belgium €16,500
Median equity
€102,583
division €98,389 · Belgium €98,350
Loss-making
26.5%
division 29.5% · Belgium 26.7%
Negative equity
14.1%
division 17.0% · Belgium 12.4%
Median return on equity
13.0%
division 12.3% · Belgium 15.9%
Median liquidity
1.51
division 1.47 · Belgium 1.66
Filed late
43.5%
financial year 2024, 324 filings · division 46.7% · Belgium 38.4%
Missing or 90 days late
7.7%
of 349 companies with annual accounts · division 7.6% · Belgium 5.4%
Per financial year202020212022202320242025
Median solvency 37.0%34.4%34.1%34.5%35.2%36.1%
Median net result €20,383€19,949€9,351€7,966€8,302€12,909

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

Bankruptcies

Bankruptcies, 5 years, still registered
12
2.27% of the registrations · Belgium 1.68%
Running bankruptcies
11
20.8 per 1,000 registrations

Recent bankruptcies

Date Company
26-08-2026 ZATZON
BE 0476.764.205
12-06-2025 C.S.
BE 0465.413.621
02-05-2025 CONA DECORATIE
BE 0874.617.920
28-04-2025 D-KO.Interieur
BE 0732.570.229
18-12-2024 Lena Decor
BE 0666.989.420
22-11-2024 TUCA DECOR
BE 0415.754.767
07-11-2024 DECO MAISON BLEUE
BE 0480.069.529
11-09-2024 CARPETLAND
BE 0414.345.792

Every bankruptcy in division 47, last 90 days

Spread across the country

by region and province · 396 of 529 enterprises with a registered office on file · a sole trader has no published seat
  • Flanders 249 · 62.9%
  • Wallonia 86 · 21.7%
  • Brussels 57 · 14.4%
  • Abroad 4 · 1.0%
fewer moremax 97

Largest employers

NACE 47530 as first main activity · staff from the latest accounts
  1. 1 CARPETLANDAntwerp 80.0 FTEfinancial year 2023
  2. 2 Decorama-SchaussMalmedy 41.3 FTEfinancial year 2025
  3. 3 ATRIOLaakdal 24.8 FTEfinancial year 2025
  4. 4 Veneta BelgiumKontich 23.8 FTEfinancial year 2025
  5. 5 HV-InterieurHeist-op-den-Berg 13.6 FTEfinancial year 2025

Joint committees

from the latest accounts of 143 companies
  • 201 Independent retail 95
  • 124 Construction 48
  • 100 Auxiliary committee for blue-collar workers 33
  • 109 Clothing and garment industry 30
  • 200 Auxiliary committee for white-collar workers 29
  • 215 White-collar workers in the clothing and garment industry 7
  • 116 Chemical industry 3
  • 207 White-collar workers in the chemical industry 3
Show the 3 others
  • 121 Cleaning 1
  • 126 Furnishing and woodworking 1
  • 219 Technical inspection and conformity assessment 1

Source: the annual accounts at the National Bank. One filing can name more than one committee.

Division 47: Retail trade

Related activities

18 other activities
Activity Registrations Starters, 12 months Bankruptcies, 12 months FTE
Retail sale of household furniture47551 2,562 120 40 7,694
Retail sale of hardware, building materials, paint and glass (general range)47521 1,680 63 11 8,291
Retail sale of electrical household appliances47540 1,488 75 7 4,732
Retail sale of household textiles and bedding47512 1,258 43 4 2,037
Retail sale of other household articles47559 1,037 127 5 200
Retail sale of lighting equipment47552 752 24 1 2,261
Show all 18 activities
Activity Registrations Starters, 12 months Bankruptcies, 12 months FTE
Retail trade47553 425 51 2 260
Retail trade47529 365 22 5 233
Retail trade47525 300 19 0 332
Retail trade47554 272 39 1 318
Retail trade47519 266 23 1 88
Retail trade47511 259 28 3 79
Retail trade47522 231 14 2 187
Retail trade47513 225 23 0 4
Retail trade47527 212 19 5 304
Retail trade47523 170 7 2 251
Retail trade47526 161 3 1 164
Retail trade47524 74 1 3 105

Bankruptcies per year in division 47

Per year201520162017201820192020202120222023202420252026
Bankruptcies1,3941,3821,4991,3741,4389317461,0761,1691,2991,294914
Jobs lost2,8933,4682,9132,7132,8924,0882,1122,1254,1563,9333,5112,092

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 47

11,343 employers
Median
€49,800
Belgium €61,400
Middle half
€39,500 to €63,700
half of the employers lie between
Place among sectors
73 of 78
sectors with a median staff cost per FTE, highest first
By size class
SizeMedianMiddle halfEmployers
fewer than 10 FTE €50,500 €39,600 to €64,200 8,078
10 to 49 FTE €46,400 €38,700 to €60,900 2,867
50 to 249 FTE €57,600 €45,000 to €72,100 320
250 FTE or more €58,400 €47,500 to €70,900 78

Running bankruptcies in the sector

NACE division 47
Number
2,276
Half have run longer than
20 months
Belgium: 20 months
Longer than three years
29%
Belgium: 31%

Measured nationally: Of 108,642 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 7 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

177 of the 60,416 companies in NACE division 47 have a parent company abroad. Main parent countries: Netherlands (54), France (51) and Germany (15). Together they employ 30,842 of the division's 222,407 FTE: 14%, against 14% for Belgium as a whole.

Subsidies in this sector

per register · legal entities with an enterprise number
  • Flemish subsidies €389.9m awarded 9,034 recipients · 2022 to 2025 · largest: Erkenning en subsidiëring als maatwerkafdeling
  • Federal transfers 11.7m amount as published 29 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)
  • Wallonia-Brussels Federation €31.7m paid 108 recipients · 2021 to 2025 · largest: Subventions aux organisations de jeunesse (décret du 20 juin 1980 et du 26 mars 2009)
  • EU budget €76.1m attributed share 24 recipients · 2021 to 2025 · largest: Information and communication technology
  • EU research €8.6m EU contribution 14 recipients · 2008 to 2026 · largest: Horizon 2020

Explore every recipient in this sector

Insights on Retail trade

Balance sheet and result. Solvency of 36.1% is below Belgium's 46.1%. The median net result of €12,909 is below Belgium's €16,500. Return on equity of 13.0% is below Belgium's 15.9%.

Bankruptcies. The median bankruptcy probability of 0.4% is above Belgium's 0.2%.

Inflow and structure. Half of the companies are younger than 16.8 years, against 8.1 years in Belgium. 25.0% of the companies are sole traders, against 41.6% in Belgium. Brussels holds 14.5% of the seats, against 12.5% in Belgium.

Staff and filing. 43.5% of the financial year 2024 accounts were filed late, against 38.4% in Belgium. The 5 largest employers hold 184 of the 376 FTE: 48.8%.

Direction. The median net result fell from €20,383 in financial year 2020 to €12,909 in financial year 2025.

The comparison with Belgium as a whole and with the other divisions is as of 08-11-2026 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 2025 classification, the version in which code 47530 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 1,276,474 companies with a main activity, because only those belong to a division. The other 699,509 registrations publish no activity.

Each median is the value of the middle company, computed over the 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. Accounts are late when they are filed after the statutory deadline. The direction per financial year follows the companies still registered today. Missing or 90 days late counts the companies with accounts missing today, or whose latest were filed more than 90 days after the deadline. The dossier follows the same rule.