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Retail trade

NACE 4765
Current registrations650
Starters, 12 months · division 47
10,792
Employment (FTE) · division 47
243,144
Median age · division 47
9.4 years

In NACE division 47, 9.2 companies per 100 started in the past twelve months, against 7.5 nationally; that is higher than that of 66% of the 87 NACE divisions. Comparison: as of 28-09-2026 05:30.

Key figures for NACE division 47

fiscal year 2025 · median over 33,360 filed annual accounts
Median solvency
35.5%
lower than 80% of 79 divisions
Median equity
€93,426
lower than 61% of 79 divisions
Median net result
€10,565
lower than 67% of 79 divisions
Annual accounts in sample
33,360

Foreign control in NACE division 47

61,076 registered companies

Bankruptcies

past five years
Bankruptcies (5y)
21
Historical share
3.23%

Nationally, 1.41% of current registrations have a published bankruptcy opening in the past five years. This sector's historical share is higher than that of 93% of the 88 NACE divisions. The median bankruptcy probability in NACE division 47 is 0.8%, against 0.5% nationally, over 57,456 scored companies. Comparison: as of 28-09-2026 05:30.

Bankruptcies still running

NACE division 47
Running bankruptcies
2,138
Half have run longer than
18 months
Belgium: 19 months
Longer than three years
25%
Belgium: 27%

Measured nationally: Of 47,224 bankruptcies of legal entities across Belgium, 45% were closed within five years for insufficient assets and 29% after liquidation, 4% were withdrawn; 22% were still open after five years. Half had ended after 28 months (a quarter after 16, three quarters after 55 months).

Counts companies with this main activity in the register on 28 September 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 · 380 of 650 enterprises with a registered office on file
Flanders 184 · 48.4%
Wallonia 136 · 35.8%
Brussels 59 · 15.5%
Unknown 1 · 0.3%

Recent bankruptcies in this sector

8
Date Company
30-03-2026 Grandcom Trading
BE 0534.632.326
17-12-2025 LA HOTTE
BE 0871.947.450
14-11-2025 Sole trader
BE 0764.434.234 · Lanaken
01-10-2025 Sole trader
BE 1012.826.290 · Mons
29-09-2025 YORSYL
BE 0739.769.114
19-09-2025 Sole trader
BE 0558.695.155 · Soumagne
15-07-2025 CHANGE THE GAME
BE 0794.614.991
07-05-2025 Wonderland
BE 0761.547.394

Geographic distribution

by province · based on the establishment address
fewer moremax 59

Public money in this sector

per register · legal entities with an enterprise number
  • Flemish subsidies €417.2m awarded 9,108 recipients · 2022 to 2025 · largest: Erkenning en subsidiëring als maatwerkafdeling
  • Federal transfers 49.7m amount as published 32 recipients · 2023 to 2025 · largest: Toelagen OCMW's recht op maatschappelijke integratie
  • Wallonia-Brussels Federation €37.6m paid 113 recipients · 2021 to 2025 · largest: Subventions aux organisations de jeunesse (décret du 20 juin 1980 et du 26 mars 2009)
  • EU budget €76.7m attributed share 25 recipients · 2021 to 2025 · largest: Information and communication technology
  • EU research €8.5m eu contribution 13 recipients · 2008 to 2026 · 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 2008 nomenclature, the one in which code 4765 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 47, not NACE 4765 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.