In January and February, 1,643 companies went bankrupt in Belgium, a 12% increase compared to the first two months of 2022.
The figure is not much lower than in 2019, when 1,927 bankruptcies were declared. However, the situation is not identical in the three regions.
Flanders and Wallonia recorded almost as many bankruptcies in the first two months of 2023 as in January-February 2019. However, Brussels, with 207 bankruptcies at the beginning of the year, still remains in sharp decline compared to 2022 (306) and 2019 (484), according to data from the GraydonCreditsafe business information office.
The provinces of Flemish Brabant and East Flanders saw record highs, with 169 bankruptcies each in the first two months of the year.
In total, some 4,500 jobs were lost to the January-February bankruptcies in Belgium, with the biggest being that of Makro Cash & Carry Belgium, which cost 1,826 jobs.
GraydonCreditsafe notes again in this year’s data that young companies suffered particularly badly: more than four out of 10 bankruptcies concerned companies not yet five years old.
In Flemish Brabant in particular, more than half of the closed businesses were young, with most of them active in the construction sector.
