Reading a Crossroads Bank for Enterprises extract

The enterprise number has ten digits and begins with 0 or 1: 0123.456.789. It identifies the legal entity and never changes, even when the name or the address does.

Numbers beginning with 2 are establishment units: the places where the activity is carried on. A company may have several of them, or none at all if it has no separate premises.

The VAT number repeats the enterprise number prefixed with "BE", but only where the entity is registered for VAT. A company that is not VAT-registered has an enterprise number and no valid VAT number.

The legal form distinguishes, in particular, the sole trader — a self-employed person trading in their own name — from a company. The distinction matters: for a sole trader, the business and the person are the same legal entity, and the register data is personal data.

The status says whether the entity is active or ceased. It is the most-read piece of information, and the simplest.

The legal situation is a separate field, often confused with the previous one: this is where the opening of a bankruptcy, a stay granted under a judicial reorganisation, or the closure of a proceeding appears. "Closure of bankruptcy" means the proceeding is over, not that it is under way.

Activities are entered as NACE-BEL codes. Construction is section F: division 41 for buildings, 42 for civil engineering, 43 for specialised works — electrical, plumbing, roofing, plastering.

A classic trap: the same code may appear in its 2003, 2008 and 2025 versions for one and the same company. Those are three successive encodings of one activity, not three activities.

Activities are declared by the company itself. They say what it says it does; they do not say what it knows how to do.

The start date is the date of registration with the KBO/BCE. It gives the administrative age of the entity — useful, as long as it is not mistaken for the experience of the people who work there: a six-month-old company may have been set up by someone self-employed for twenty years.

The address is the registered seat, which may be a private home or an accountant's address. It is not necessarily where the activity happens.

What the extract does not contain: no turnover, no headcount, no insurance, no disputes, no customer reviews. Those are found elsewhere — the annual accounts at the National Bank's Central Balance Sheet Office, the insurance from the company itself.

The status places the entity in its life cycle: "active" or "ceased", plus four more technical values — "identified", "legal creation", "closed", "cancelled" — which cover entities merely registered with an administration, companies whose deed has been filed without legal personality yet acquired, and numbers allocated twice or in error. "Ceased" says that the entity no longer exists or is no longer active; it does not say why.

The why is in the legal situation, the separate field where proceedings appear and whose default value is "normal situation". "Opening of bankruptcy", "stay (judicial reorganisation)" and "voluntary dissolution – liquidation" describe a situation under way on the day of the extract; "closure of bankruptcy" and "closure of liquidation" describe a situation that is over. Confusing them is the commonest mistake made in front of these pages. An entity may in fact be "active" and in opening of bankruptcy: the two fields answer two different questions.

"Struck off" is neither a status nor a legal situation: it is a separate mention, entered with its own date. The KBO/BCE may strike off of its own motion a company that has not filed its annual accounts for at least three consecutive financial years, or an entity that has not completed its formalities with the UBO register. Striking off is administrative: the FPS Economy states that the company continues to exist in law and keeps its rights and obligations, and that the striking off is withdrawn once the failure has been put right.

The address shown is that of the seat: the registered seat for a legal person, the domicile or main residence for a natural person — hence personal data. A seat at a private home or at an accountant's address is common and perfectly lawful. It says where the entity can be reached in law; it does not say that a workshop, a store or an office exists.

The establishment units are read separately: a place in Belgium, identifiable by an address, where at least one of the entity's activities is carried on or from which it is carried on. Each carries its own number, its address and its status, but neither legal form nor legal situation. An entity may have none at all — an entity merely identified with an administration, a foreign entity with no Belgian premises. That is not an anomaly in itself; together with a seat that is no more than a domiciliation address, it means the register knows of no place of activity in Belgium, which is a question to ask and not a verdict.

Every piece of KBO/BCE data carries its own period of validity, a start date and sometimes an end date: the address, the declared activity, the establishment unit, the legal situation, the striking off. They change independently of one another. An extract is therefore not a photograph but a stack of dated facts, and it is by reading a line without its date that a closed proceeding is taken for one that is under way.