Visual arts creation

NACE 90120 · division 90 Creative and performing arts

Current registrations 2,027division 90: 29,094

Starters, 12 months 2,764division 90 · 9.5 per 100 · Belgium 7.5

Bankruptcies, 5 years 20.10% of the registrations · Belgium 1.61%

Employment (FTE) 10,858division 90 · financial year 2025

Median age 7.0 yearsdivision 90 · Belgium 10.7 years

Filed accounts of the division

NACE division 90 · financial year 2025 · 3,752 filed annual accounts

Median solvency

46.7%

Belgium 46.2%

Median net result

€7,938

Belgium €16,557

Median equity

€63,634

Belgium €98,554

Loss-making

34.0%

Belgium 26.7%

Negative equity

14.8%

Belgium 12.4%

Median return on equity

12.6%

Belgium 15.9%

Median liquidity

1.83

Belgium 1.66

Staff cost per FTE in NACE division 90

438 employers

Median

€66,300

Belgium €61,400

Middle half

€54,000 to €77,700

half of the employers lie between

Place among sectors

38 of 78

sectors with a median staff cost per FTE, highest first

By size class
Size	Median	Middle half	Employers
fewer than 10 FTE	€63,100	€49,000 to €77,800	260
10 to 49 FTE	€67,600	€59,500 to €74,900	150
50 to 249 FTE	€77,000	€70,700 to €83,600	26

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

Bankruptcies

Bankruptcies, 12 months

division 90 · 1.8 per 1,000 registrations · Belgium 5.5

Recent bankruptcies

Date	Company
19-06-2026	Enigma Releasing BE 1008.209.783
14-05-2025	Cadmium BE 0751.513.141

Every bankruptcy in division 90, last 90 days

Running bankruptcies in the sector

NACE division 90

Number

Half have run longer than

19 months

Belgium: 20 months

Longer than three years

23%

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entities across Belgium, 49% were closed within five years for insufficient assets and 28% after liquidation, 3% were withdrawn.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 2 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 · 746 of 2,027 enterprises with a registered office on file

Flanders 307 · 41.2%
Brussels 250 · 33.5%
Wallonia 189 · 25.3%

West Flanders WVL 31

East Flanders OVL 87

Antwerp ANT 121

Flemish Brabant VLB 45

Limburg LIM 23

Brussels BRU 250

Hainaut HAI 50

Walloon Brabant WBR 42

Namur NAM 20

Liège LIE 65

Luxembourg LUX 12

fewer moremax 250

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

Largest employers

NACE division 90 · staff from the latest accounts

1 ASOBVAntwerp 430 FTEfinancial year 2025
2 CENTRE LYRIQUE DE LA COMMUNAUTE FRANCAISE - OPERA ROYAL DE WALLONIELiège 259 FTEfinancial year 2025
3 Paleis voor Schone KunstenBrussels 227 FTEfinancial year 2025
4 PAYCOOPUkkel 205 FTEfinancial year 2025
5 WEAREONE.worldAntwerp 198 FTEfinancial year 2025

5 of the 11,232 companies in NACE division 90 have a parent company abroad. Main parent countries: France (2), Germany (1) and Denmark (1). Together they employ 139 of the division's 7,612 FTE: 1.8%, against 15% for Belgium as a whole.

Subsidies in this sector

per register · legal entities with an enterprise number

Flemish subsidies €721.4m awarded 1,420 recipients · 2022 to 2025 · largest: Professionele kunsten: Werkingssubsidie voor een kunstenorganisatie voor een periode van 5 jaar (Kunstendecreet 2021)
Federal transfers 236.9m amount as published 33 recipients · 2023 to 2025 · largest: Toelage aan de Koninklijke Muntschouwburg.
Wallonia-Brussels Federation €645.9m paid 1,213 recipients · 2021 to 2025 · largest: Conventions et contrats programmes indexés dans le domaine des arts vivants
EU budget €28.4m attributed share 55 recipients · 2021 to 2025 · largest: Creative Europe
EU research €6.6m eu contribution 17 recipients · 2008 to 2027 · largest: Horizon Europe

Explore every recipient in this sector

Insights on Visual arts creation

The number of starters per 100 companies in NACE division 90 is higher than that of 75% of the 87 NACE divisions with this figure.

This sector's historical share is lower than that of 89% of the 88 NACE divisions with this figure.

The median bankruptcy probability in NACE division 90 is 0.1%, against 0.2% for Belgium as a whole. It is computed over 10,840 scored companies.

The comparison with Belgium as a whole and with the other divisions is as of 02-11-2026 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 90120 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 90, not only NACE 90120. 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.