How to integrate the BCE/KBO API into your application

In brief

The BCE/KBO API gives access to official data on more than 2 million Belgian companies registered with the Crossroads Bank for Enterprises. Within minutes you can authenticate requests with an API key, query the database by name or BCE number and enrich your application with up-to-date data.

Introduction

The BCE/KBO API gives you access to official data from over 2 million Belgian companies. In this guide, we'll walk through how to integrate it step by step into your application.

Prerequisites

Before getting started, make sure you have:

• An account on our platform

• An active API key (public and secret)

• Node.js 18+ or any other environment capable of making HTTP requests

Step 1: Get your API keys

Log in to your dashboard and go to the "API Keys" section. Create a new key pair. You'll receive:

• Public key (pk_live_...): identifies your application

• Secret key (sk_live_...): authenticates your requests (never expose on client side)

Step 2: First request

Here's an example in JavaScript/TypeScript:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

const response = await fetch(class="code-string">'https:class="code-comment">//companybelgium.be/api/companies/search?q=Proximus', {
  headers: {
    class="code-string">'X-API-Key': class="code-string">'pk_live_your_public_key',
    class="code-string">'X-API-Secret': class="code-string">'sk_live_your_secret_key',
  },
});

const data = await response.json();
console.log(data.results);

Step 3: Advanced search

The API supports several search types:

• By name: /api/companies/search?q=name

• By BCE number: /api/companies/{id}

• By address: /api/companies/address?zipCode=1000

• Peppol verification: /api/peppol/check?vatNumber=BE0123456789

Best practices

Conclusion

Integrating the BCE/KBO API is simple and fast. In just a few minutes, you can enrich your application with official Company Belgium data. Go further with the Node.js and TypeScript guide for the BCE API, the Python tutorial with FastAPI, the API security best practices guide and the full BCE endpoints reference.