How do you request the annual accounts of a German, Belgian or other European company?

The short answer

Every country has its own register. In Belgium the annual accounts are at the Balanscentrale of the National Bank (according to the bank viewable free of charge), in Germany in the Unternehmensregister (logging in is free, a filed document costs € 1,00 excl. VAT) and for other EU countries you search via the European e-Justice portal. A small German GmbH may suffice with a balance sheet only.

Updated 30 October 2026

Key facts

Which register belongs to which country?

The annual document of a foreign legal entity is usually in the register of the country where it is registered. The European e-Justice portal searches those national registers, but the document itself, the price and the rules come from the register of that country. So first find the company, then determine where the annual document is.

The amounts are those the source named on 30 October 2026; a register may change them. Ask the customer for the registration number and search on that instead of the name: names resemble each other, a number points to one company.

Searching via the European portal (BRIS)

The Business Registers Interconnection System (BRIS) connects the business registers of the member states. According to the portal itself, the e-Justice portal retrieves the data in real time from those registers. It concerns public and private limited companies and their branches in an EU country, Iceland, Liechtenstein or Norway, and the European company (SE). For a sole proprietorship or vof the portal names no coverage; for a company in the United Kingdom or outside Europe you search the register of that country itself.

1. Search for the company. If you have the registration number, use it; otherwise search on the name. In the results open the company you mean.
2. See what the register makes available. The portal shows the data the national registers supply. Whether an annual account is among them you see at the company itself.
3. Check whether the document is free. According to the portal you can currently only request there information that the national register provides free of charge. If the register charges for a document, the portal shows a price that is only indicative.
4. Is the document not there? Then go to the register of the country itself. For Germany and Belgium those are below.

Belgium: the Balanscentrale and the KBO

Belgian legal entities file their annual accounts with the Balanscentrale of the National Bank of Belgium. According to the bank, most legal entities active in Belgium must file annual accounts, including companies, associations, foundations and health insurance funds.

Viewing is done with the Consult application, which you find via the National Bank's page on the Balanscentrale. According to the bank you view annual accounts with it free of charge. Consult gives data about the legal entity, refers to all published annual accounts and shows the filed annual accounts as a pdf, XBRL or csv file.

If you first want to be sure who you are dealing with, you use the KBO Public Search of the Kruispuntbank van Ondernemingen (Crossroads Bank for Enterprises). It shows the public data of all registered entities and their establishment units, also of entities that have ceased, and searches by number, name, activity or address. The role is comparable to that of the KVK extract in the Netherlands: who is this company and is it still active; see KVK extract or annual accounts.

The Belgian annual account follows Belgian law and its own layout. Items and size classes do not automatically correspond to those of Title 9 of Book 2 DCC; so read the item names and the notes of the document itself, and do not calculate from your Dutch class division.

Germany: the Unternehmensregister

German corporations must make their annual documents public: the AG, the KGaA, the GmbH and the UG (haftungsbeschränkt), as well as the GmbH & Co. KG. According to the Bundesamt für Justiz (Federal Office of Justice) this happens, for financial years beginning after 31 December 2021, with the body that runs the Unternehmensregister; earlier it was the Bundesanzeiger. What you are looking for is therefore in the Unternehmensregister.

What it costs and what you need

Registering in the Unternehmensregister is free, and searching for a company and viewing publications, announcements and register information costs nothing according to the register. The filed annual documents, in German Hinterlegte Jahresabschlussunterlagen, are paid: € 1,00 excl. VAT per document. You put them in a Dokumentenkorb (document basket) and pay by SEPA direct debit or credit card. To retrieve filed balance sheets you must be registered and logged in.

What a small GmbH files

A Kleinstkapitalgesellschaft is a small corporation that does not exceed at least two of three limits: a balance sheet total of € 450.000, net turnover of € 900.000 in the twelve months before the balance sheet date and an average of 10 employees (§ 267a(1) HGB, read on 30 October 2026). According to the law such a company only has to deliver one document:

Section 325 (1) is to be applied to micro-corporations (section 267a) with the proviso that the members of the representative body need only submit the balance sheet and may thereby request that it be entered into the Unternehmensregister by permanent deposit.

In plain language: a micro-GmbH files only the balance sheet and may ask for it to be kept permanently, instead of publishing the whole annual document. To do so it notifies the register that it stays below the limit on two of the three criteria. The Unternehmensregister puts it like this: a Kleinstunternehmen (micro-enterprise) prepares a simplified balance sheet and does not have to add an Anhang (notes) if certain data are under the balance sheet. A small corporation that does not fall into this category files, under § 326(1) HGB, the balance sheet and the notes; the profit and loss account itself need not be filed.

For you this means: for a small GmbH you find a balance sheet, no profit and loss account and not always notes. Turnover, profit and costs then remain invisible. What a Dutch micro or small legal entity makes public is described at the KVK per size class (per class); the Dutch and German rules are not the same.

Reading the German balance sheet

The main items of the German balance sheet are in § 266(2) and (3) HGB. This is what they mean in Dutch terms:

Example: a German customer with an order of € 45.000

Fictional example: Voorbeeld Staal B.V. receives an order of € 45.000 from Voorbeeld Montage GmbH, payable within 60 days. The GmbH is a new customer. The seller looks it up in the Unternehmensregister, sees that as a Kleinstkapitalgesellschaft it had the balance sheet deposited and buys the balance sheets at 31 December 2024 and 31 December 2025: 2 × € 1,00 = € 2,00 excl. VAT. If both years are in one document, it is € 1,00.

• Equity as a share of the balance sheet total. € 38.000 / € 320.000 = 11,9% at the end of 2024, € 61.000 / € 350.000 = 17,4% at the end of 2025.
• Current ratio, calculated cautiously. The balance sheet does not name the term, so the example treats all provisions and debts as current. € 230.000 / (€ 22.000 + € 260.000) = 0,82 at the end of 2024, € 255.000 / (€ 24.000 + € 265.000) = 0,88 at the end of 2025. This is a lower bound, not an exact measure.
• The order next to equity. € 45.000 is 118,4% of equity at the end of 2024 and 73,8% of that at the end of 2025.

The direction is favourable, the level remains low. For Dutch entrepreneurs the KVK writes that financiers consider 25% to 40% a healthy solvency, and that this norm differs per sector, type of company and financier. A current ratio between 1,2 and 1,5 is healthy according to the KVK; below 1 it is not a sign of a healthy company. The German balance sheet follows the HGB, so the seller uses the figures as an indication: the ratio improves from 11,9% to 17,4% but stays below that 25%. On the older balance sheet alone the order would be larger than the entire equity; so buy the newest balance sheet and that of the year before.

What the balance sheet does not tell: equity rose by € 23.000 (€ 61.000 − € 38.000), but without a profit and loss account it is impossible to see whether that was profit, a contribution by the shareholders or something else. Turnover also remains unknown, and the position is that of the balance sheet date. The seller can therefore arrange something other than simply accepting the order: a down payment, a payment term shorter than 60 days, delivery in parts, credit insurance or security from the shareholder, or first asking for current figures for the current year. Which measure fits is a business and legal consideration; this is not legal advice.

What you do and do not get from a foreign annual account

• Other law, other layout. The document follows the law of the country of the legal entity. Totals such as equity and the balance sheet total compare well; individual items do not always. Read the notes if there are any.
• The item names are in the language of the country. The table above translates the German ones; for a Belgian document you read the item names and the notes yourself.
• It is a position at the balance sheet date. A filed balance sheet may already be months old by the time you read it, as with a Dutch one; see checking the financial position of a supplier for how to weigh that.
• A missing document is not proof. There may be a rule that exempts the company, it may be late, or you are searching the wrong register or under a wrong name. Ask the company itself for its latest annual accounts.
• An annual account is not a payment reference. It says how the company stood on the balance sheet date, not how it pays. For large amounts you supplement the figures with a payment reference or credit information.

And your own annual accounts as a Dutch supplier?

If you do business with customers abroad, nothing changes about what your own BV must do: the Dutch rules for annual accounts and filing apply to you (who has to file the annual accounts?). Conversely, a foreign customer can retrieve your filed annual accounts from the KVK to assess your position; how that works is in requesting annual accounts from the KVK, and in English in order annual accounts of a Dutch company.

For annual accounts, Jaarrekening.io follows Title 9 Book 2 DCC: the BV, the NV and the cooperative, and a vof or cv only if all fully liable partners are foreign corporations (art. 2:360(2) DCC). Jaarrekening.io does not prepare a German Jahresabschluss under the HGB or a Belgian annual account. If your BV has a foreign shareholder, you read in annual accounts of a BV with a foreign Ltd as shareholder what that means for your own documents.

If you prepare the annual accounts of your own BV yourself, the first one in your account at Jaarrekening.io is at zero euros, regardless of size class; see free annual accounts and what do annual accounts cost?. The amounts in the table above are those of the registers, separate from that.

Source and date

The pages of e-Justice, the National Bank of Belgium, the Kruispuntbank van Ondernemingen, the Unternehmensregister, the Bundesamt für Justiz and the German statutes were read on 30 October 2026. Amounts and conditions may change, so check the register itself before you pay. Not checked and therefore not described: the Belgian thresholds and the Belgian layout, the German filing deadline and the consequences of filing late, the language in which documents are drawn up, and the registers of countries outside e-Justice. The example is fictional.

Sources

• e-Justice: General information on find a company (BRIS)
• National Bank of Belgium: About the Central Balance Sheet Office
• Kruispuntbank van Ondernemingen: KBO Public Search
• Unternehmensregister: Kosten
• Unternehmensregister: Hinterlegungen
• Unternehmensregister: Fragen und Antworten
• Bundesamt für Justiz: Offenlegungspflichten
• Statutory text § 326 HGB: relief for small and micro-corporations (gesetze-im-internet.de)
• Statutory text § 267a HGB: micro-corporations (gesetze-im-internet.de)
• Statutory text § 266 HGB: layout of the balance sheet (gesetze-im-internet.de)
• KVK: requesting annual accounts
• KVK: tariff overview as of 1 January 2026 (pdf)
• KVK: checking the financial position of a business relation via the annual accounts (updated 2 April 2026)
• KVK: determining the viability of your business (guideline values for solvency and current ratio, updated 9 March 2026)

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