October 16, 2023

There were 1,143,403 VAT-registered enterprises in Belgium on 31 December 2022. This is what emerged from the new results of Statbel, the Belgian statistical office. This represents an annual growth of 4.5%. This growth is slightly higher than the figure of 4.2% recorded in 2021, and significantly higher than the 3.2% average growth over the last 10 years.

The number of enterprise births amounted to 126,858 units, or 10.7% more than in 2021, while 78,062 enterprises ceased their activities, or 10.4% more than in 2021.

Professional, scientific and technical activities is the sector with the highest number of enterprises

Since 2017, the sector Professional, scientific and technical activities (Nace M) has been the sector with the highest number of enterprises in Belgium. There were 224,068 of them on 31/12/2022, or 3.9% more than a year earlier. This sector also saw the most births in 2022: 22,183 enterprise births and 13,526 de-registrations.

With 188,715 VAT-registered enterprises, Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles (Nace G) is the second largest sector. There were 15,734 births and 16,185 de-registrations in this sector in 2022. As a result, the sector records a decline of 0.5% in 2022.

The third sector, Construction (Nace F), accounts for 157,378 enterprises. There were 16,434 births as against 10,874 de-registrations in this sector. This results in an annual growth of 4%.

Source: Statbel
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