Belgian Crossroads Bank for Enterprises (BCE/KBO) API: complete English developer documentation

In brief

The Belgian Crossroads Bank for Enterprises (BCE/KBO) is the official central registry for all Belgian legal entities, managed by the SPF Economie. Company Belgium provides the fastest REST/JSON access to its 2 million companies, with enrichments for UBO, Peppol and real-time webhooks — plus SDKs for Python and TypeScript.

What is the Belgian Crossroads Bank for Enterprises?

The Belgian Crossroads Bank for Enterprises (abbreviated BCE in French — *Banque-Carrefour des Entreprises* — and KBO in Dutch — *Kruispuntbank van Ondernemingen*) is the official central registry of every legal entity active in Belgium: companies, self-employed individuals, non-profit associations, foundations and public bodies.

It is managed by the Belgian Federal Public Service for Economy (SPF Economie / FOD Economie). All data are public except those legally protected (e.g. private addresses of natural persons).

Key figures (2026)

• ~2 million active legal entities

• ~1.7 million establishments (physical locations attached to entities)

• ~34 million NACE activity assignments

• ~3.3 million company denominations across FR, NL, EN

• Updated daily via incremental delta files

Why integrate the BCE/KBO

Use cases that justify accessing the BCE:

• KYC / AML compliance under the Belgian Act of 18 September 2017 — see our AML compliance guide

• Supplier verification (existence, legal status, address, ID)

• Auto-fill of business signup forms by VAT number

• Sales prospecting by sector (NACE code), city or company size

• Peppol invoicing (linking the BCE number to an electronic invoicing endpoint)

• Beneficial ownership transparency via the UBO register — see our UBO article

Identifier formats

The BCE uses two main identifier types:

Enterprise number

10-digit identifier for legal entities. Format: NNNN.NNN.NNN (with dots) or NNNNNNNNNN (without). The Belgian VAT number is the enterprise number prefixed with BE.

Example: 0200.065.765 → VAT: BE0200065765

Establishment number

10-digit identifier for physical sites. Format: NNNN.NNN.NNN starting with 2. An entity can have multiple establishments.

Example: 2.100.000.123

Official access options

The Belgian government provides three official channels:

1. KBOPublicSearch (SOAP)

The official SOAP web service at kbopub.economie.fgov.be. Free, no API key required for public reads. Returns XML envelopes. No REST, no JSON.

Documentation in French/Dutch only. Best suited to enterprise integrations with existing SOAP tooling.

2. EnterpriseRegister (SOAP, authenticated)

A second SOAP service for accredited actors only: notaries, court clerks, banks, government partners. Requires an explicit agreement with the SPF Economie.

3. Open Data (FTP)

A daily FTP drop of ZIP files containing the full registry as CSV. Two variants:

• Full: complete snapshot (~500 MB compressed)

• Update: daily delta (insert + delete pairs)

Suitable for bulk processing and data warehouses. Not suitable for real-time lookups.

Third-party REST APIs

Because the official SOAP API is unwieldy in 2026 stacks, several third-party REST APIs have emerged. We cover them in detail in our comparison article and discuss the limits of the official API. The main ones:

• CBEAPI (cbeapi.be) — free community project

• Banque Carrefour Entreprises (banquecarrefourentreprises.fr) — French paid service

• Kruispuntdatabank (kruispuntdatabank.be) — Dutch paid service

• Company Belgium (companybelgium.be) — multilingual freemium with UBO, Peppol and webhooks

Quick start with Company Belgium

The fastest path for a developer with no Belgian-context expertise.

Get API credentials

First call

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curl -X GET "https://api.companybelgium.be/v1/companies/0200065765" \
  -H "X-API-Key: pk_live_xxxxxxxxxxxx" \
  -H "X-API-Secret: sk_live_xxxxxxxxxxxx" \
  -H "Accept: application/json"

Response:

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{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "enterpriseNumber": "0200065765",
    "vatNumber": "BE0200065765",
    "name": "Espero-Soft Informatiques SRL",
    "legalForm": "Limited liability company",
    "status": "AC",
    "address": {
      "fullAddress": "Example Street 12, 1000 Brussels"
    },
    "mainActivity": {
      "code": "62.010",
      "label": "Computer programming",
      "version": "2008"
    }
  },
  "timestamp": "2026-05-14T10:32:18.421Z"
}

Search by name

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curl -X GET "https://api.companybelgium.be/v1/companies/search?q=espero&limit=10" \
  -H "X-API-Key: pk_live_xxxxxxxxxxxx" \
  -H "X-API-Secret: sk_live_xxxxxxxxxxxx"

Check UBO cascade

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curl -X GET "https://api.companybelgium.be/v1/companies/0200065765/ubo" \
  -H "X-API-Key: pk_live_xxxxxxxxxxxx" \
  -H "X-API-Secret: sk_live_xxxxxxxxxxxx"

Full endpoint list: see the endpoints reference.

Data model essentials for non-Belgian developers

A few specifics that surprise newcomers:

Enterprise status

• AC — Active (operational)

• ST — Ceased (struck off the registry)

A ceased entity still appears in the BCE with all historical data preserved.

Legal forms

Belgium has dozens of legal forms, often with distinct French/Dutch names. The most common:

• SA / NV — Public limited company

• SRL / BV — Limited liability company (since 2019 reform)

• SC / CV — Cooperative company

• ASBL / VZW — Non-profit association

• Self-employed — Independent natural person with VAT

NACE codes

The BCE assigns one main NACE code (mandatory) and zero or more secondary ones. NACE versions used:

• NACE 2003 — legacy data

• NACE 2008 — current default

• NACE 2025 — new revision

When integrating, always check the version field of activity records.

Multilingual denominations

A company can have denominations in French, Dutch and English — sometimes different names per language. Always fetch the language matching your user.

Compliance considerations

If you process BCE data, be aware of:

GDPR

BCE data on legal persons (companies) is not personal data under GDPR. But:

• BCE data on natural persons (self-employed) is personal data

• Director information (linked to companies) is personal data

• Beneficial owners (UBO) are natural persons → strict access rules

The UBO register itself has had its access rules tightened by the CJEU judgment of 22 November 2022 (cases C-37/20 and C-601/20). Public access is no longer free; only authorities and parties with legitimate interest can query it.

Belgian AML obligations

If you operate in a regulated profession in Belgium (lawyer, accountant, real-estate agent, company service provider, etc.), you are subject to the Act of 18 September 2017. See our compliance guide and KYC obligations.

Data freshness

Even daily-updated BCE data can be 24-48 hours stale relative to the underlying ledger. For real-time decisions (signing a contract, releasing a payment), cross-check with the entity directly.

Scaling considerations

Pre-built guidance for production traffic — caching, retry, webhooks, observability — is covered in our reference architecture article.

In short:

• Use webhooks for change tracking instead of polling

• Cache static data (NACE labels, legal forms) for hours

• Cache company records for 5-30 minutes depending on volatility

• Maintain a local snapshot of companies you actively track

SDKs and tooling

For Company Belgium specifically:

• Python SDK (pip install companybelgium) — see Python tutorial

• TypeScript SDK (npm install @companybelgium/sdk) — see Node.js tutorial

• OpenAPI 3.1 spec at https://api.companybelgium.be/v1/docs/openapi.json — generate clients in any language

• Sandbox at https://sandbox.api.companybelgium.be with test data

Support

If you hit issues:

• Open a ticket via the dashboard

• Status page at https://status.companybelgium.be (uptime, incidents)

• Documentation portal: https://companybelgium.be/en/api-docs

For Belgian-specific legal questions, the SPF Economie helpdesk is the authoritative source.

How Company Belgium serves international developers

We have first-class support for non-French/Dutch speakers:

• English documentation for every endpoint

• Pricing in EUR with VAT handling for EU/non-EU customers

• API responses in English when requested via Accept-Language: en

• Webhooks with multilingual payloads (the name field returns the language requested)

• Support in English via email and chat

• VAT-compliant invoicing in 3 languages with Peppol delivery — see how this fits with the Peppol verification endpoint

For an international developer, this removes the friction of integrating a Belgian-only registry into a global product.

Bottom line

The Belgian Crossroads Bank for Enterprises is one of the most complete, freshest and most accessible company registries in Europe. The official API is SOAP-only, but multiple modern REST alternatives exist, with Company Belgium offering the most enriched stack (UBO cascade, Peppol verification, webhooks).

For an international developer, the recommended path is:

You can be live in production within a day.