Companies, associations and foundations are required to publish a social balance sheet as part of their annual accounts.

However, a very limited number of companies, associations and foundations are not required to publish annual accounts through the National Bank of Belgium, and some companies are not required to draw up annual accounts at all. The companies, associations and foundations listed below are nevertheless required to draw up a separate social balance sheet. This is an exception which applies to:

• hospitals to the extent they have not adopted the form of a commercial company with limited liability or a non-profit organisation (considered large or very large under the size criteria); where appropriate, they must publish annual accounts including a social balance sheet;
• private-law legal entities which are not required to publish annual accounts, provided they have at least 20 employees recorded in their personnel register.
  Private-law legal entities that are not required to publish annual accounts and that:
  • employ 50 or more people on average must draw up their social balance sheet in accordance with the full model;
  • employ 20 to 49 people on average are allowed to draw up their social balance sheet in accordance with the abridged model.