Entering Belgium through distributors: three regions, Peppol e-invoicing and the buyers who invite suppliers

Belgium is small on the map and large in complexity. One country, three regions, three official languages and several levels of public buyer. A manufacturer that treats it as one French-speaking or one Dutch-speaking market misses half of it; one that plans for the language split, invoices the Belgian way and makes its first contact within the rules finds distributors used to working with foreign suppliers.

Putting it simply: Belgian professional trade runs through specialist distributors that sell to installers, institutions and public buyers, often in one language region rather than the whole country. Documentation is expected in Dutch and French, and in German for the east. Since 1 January 2026, invoices between Belgian VAT-registered businesses must be structured e-invoices, normally sent over Peppol, so your distributor's systems are built around them. Public tenders and award notices are on the national e-Procurement platform and, above the EU thresholds, on TED. A first e-mail is lawful only to a company's impersonal address, such as info@ or sales@.

How the market buys

Three regions, four language areas

The Constitution opens by describing Belgium as a federal state made up of communities and regions. It names three regions (Walloon, Flemish and Brussels) and four language areas: French-speaking, Dutch-speaking, German-speaking and bilingual Brussels-Capital, with every municipality belonging to one of them. That structure shapes trade: a distributor may serve one language region or several. The first question is therefore not only "who sells my category" but "in which language region, and for which buyers".

You can appoint one national distributor or one per language region. A national partner gives you one contract and one stock point; regional partners may know their buyers better. Whichever you choose, settle territory and exclusivity in writing before the first order, and say how Brussels, which sits between the two, is handled.

Specialist distribution and institutional buyers

The pattern in most technical and professional categories is the familiar one: the manufacturer sells to a specialist distributor, who sells to installers, contractors, facilities managers and institutional buyers. Healthcare is a good example of how institutional demand is organised. The FPS Public Health counts 101 general hospitals as at 1 January 2026, grouped in 23 locoregional hospital networks that coordinate care and organise the services they offer together. As of November 2026 we could not confirm from an official source a general rule on whether those networks also buy jointly, so check each network's tender notices to see who the contracting authority is. Our guide on dealers, buying groups and head offices covers how to choose the level to approach first.

The proof Belgian buyers expect

Documentation in the right languages

Distributors expect technical sheets, instructions, warranty terms and commercial conditions in Dutch and French, and in German if they serve the German-speaking area. Where your product reaches consumers, the law sets a floor: under article VI.8 of the Code of Economic Law, mandatory labelling information, instructions for use and warranty documents must be written at least in a language the average consumer can understand, taking into account the language region where the goods are offered. For professional products the requirement is commercial rather than legal, but it is no less real: a distributor cannot put an English-only file in front of a buyer in Liège or Ghent.

Conformity evidence

CE marking and the declaration of conformity wherever EU product legislation applies, and test reports against the standards buyers name in their tender documents. Belgian public buyers award on the most economically advantageous tender, which article 81 of the public procurement law of 17 June 2016 lets them define by price, by cost (such as life-cycle cost) or by the best price-quality ratio, including quality, technical merit, after-sales service and delivery terms. A distributor that can score on those criteria needs your data to do it.

Structured e-invoicing through Peppol

Since 1 January 2026, all Belgian VAT-registered businesses must use structured electronic invoices with each other, exchanged directly between their software; a PDF sent by e-mail no longer counts. The invoices travel over Peppol, a decentralised network to which the sender's and the recipient's software connect. The legal basis is article 53, § 2bis of the VAT Code, as the official e-invoicing FAQ points out. The authorities applied a general tolerance period for the first three months of 2026, which has ended; a narrower tolerance for self-billing ran until 30 June 2026.

What this means for you depends on where you are established. According to the official FAQ, VAT-registered businesses not established in Belgium and without a fixed establishment there are not subject to the obligation, even if they hold a Belgian VAT number, and the law is to be amended on that point. So a foreign manufacturer invoicing a Belgian distributor is not itself obliged; but your distributor's purchasing and accounting now run on Peppol, and an invoice it can receive that way removes friction from the first order. If you set up a Belgian establishment, the obligation applies to you. This is a summary of the official guidance, not tax advice: confirm your own position with your tax adviser.

A company that can be checked

The Crossroads Bank for Enterprises (Banque-Carrefour des Entreprises, Kruispuntbank van Ondernemingen) is run by a service within the FPS Economy and holds every enterprise that the law requires to register. Anyone can consult its public data free of charge on the BCE Public Search website, by number, name, activity or address. A Belgian company's VAT number is its enterprise number with the prefix BE. Expect your distributor to look you up just as you look it up; give your full legal name, address, register and VAT numbers on your website and in your offer.

Payment terms

The law of 2 August 2002 on combating late payment in commercial transactions sets the rules. Between businesses, if the contract sets no date, payment is due within 30 calendar days of receipt of the invoice (or of the goods or services, if the invoice date is uncertain). The parties may agree a term, but it may not exceed 60 calendar days, and any clause providing a longer one is deemed unwritten; any acceptance or verification period counts within it, and the parties may not fix the date of receipt of the invoice by contract (article 4, as amended with effect from 1 February 2022).

For public buyers the default is also 30 days; a longer term may be agreed only if objectively justified by the nature of the contract, and never beyond 60 days. Recognised healthcare providers pay within 60 calendar days. Late payment carries interest at the ECB rate plus eight percentage points, rounded up to the next half point (article 5), and a flat €40 for recovery costs on top of reasonable further costs (article 6). Build your price list and your distributor's margin around those limits, and have your contract terms checked by a Belgian adviser.

Where public demand is visible

e-Procurement and TED

The national platform is e-Procurement, developed in-house by FPS BOSA and live since 2023. It brings together what the former e-Notification (publishing tenders), e-Tendering (submitting offers) and e-Catalogue (ordering under framework contracts) applications did, and companies can set search profiles to receive e-mails about relevant tenders. FPS BOSA expected at least 20,000 public tenders a year to be published on it.

The thresholds for EU-wide publication are €140,000 for supplies and services bought by federal contracting authorities and €216,000 for other contracting authorities (article 11 of the Royal Decree of 18 April 2017, as updated). Above them, article 62 of the 2016 law requires the buyer to send an award notice within 30 days of concluding the contract or framework, and those notices appear on TED. Below them, for contracts estimated at €30,000 or more, the buyer sends a simplified award notice, also within 30 days, naming the winner and the value of the accepted tender (annex 5/1 of the Royal Decree). Each award names the winner: a distributor that keeps winning laboratory, furniture or medical consumables contracts in Flanders or Wallonia has proven demand. Article 47 allows buyers to purchase through central purchasing bodies, so the authority named on a notice may be buying for others.

Below the thresholds, buyers invite

Two rules make being known matter. Contracts estimated below €30,000 are subject to only a few provisions of the law, carry no award notice and may be concluded on an accepted invoice (article 92). And for supplies and services below €140,000 excluding VAT, whatever the level of the buyer, a buyer may use the negotiated procedure without prior publication, consulting several suppliers where possible (article 42 of the law and article 90 of the Royal Decree). In those procedures the buyer chooses whom to invite. A distributor already on its list is the one that gets the call, which is another reason to work through one rather than alone.

Lawful first contact

Belgium allows a first e-mail to a company, but the rule is narrow. Article XII.13 of the Code of Economic Law prohibits advertising by e-mail without the recipient's prior, free, specific and informed consent. The Royal Decree of 4 April 2003 exempts messages to legal persons when the electronic address used is impersonal: info@, sales@ or orders@ may receive an offer aimed at businesses; firstname.lastname@ is a natural person's address and needs that person's consent. It is for the sender to prove the exemption applies, and every advertising e-mail must explain the right to object and offer an electronic way to do so; a request to stop must be acknowledged and acted on.

In practice: write to the distributor's generic address, in the language of its region, about an offer for businesses, identify yourself fully and include an opt-out. To reach a named buyer or director, use a letter, the sector's trade fair or an introduction. Once a distributor has written to you, e-mail is no longer unsolicited. This summarises the rule; it is not legal advice, so check your campaign with your adviser. The Belgium market page sets out the rule, its sources and the entry steps.

Where Cresques fits

Belgium is a Cresques market. When you create a market for Belgium, Cresques reads the TED award notices for the CPV categories you choose and shows which companies already win them, with company-level data kept and personal details removed; the materials reader can suggest those categories from your brochure or website. In our analysis of TED award notices for supplies (September 2026), 83% of the winners in notices from Belgian buyers were companies registered in the country (methodology). Cresques does not read e-Procurement, so national procedures and simplified award notices below the EU thresholds are not in its evidence. Company profiles with an AI-researched role and first messages drafted in the local language are live; e-mail alerts on new awards come with paid plans.

What this means for a manufacturer

• Find the distributors through the public trail: award notices on TED and e-Procurement name the companies that win your category, and the buyer's location tells you their language region.
• Decide between one national distributor and one per language region, and settle Brussels and exclusivity in writing.
• Prepare the file in Dutch and French (German for the east): data sheets, instructions, warranty, price list, conformity evidence and test reports.
• Be ready to invoice in a structured format your distributor can receive over Peppol, even though a non-established supplier is not itself obliged.
• Keep payment terms within the law of 2 August 2002: 60 days at most between businesses, 30 for public buyers unless objectively justified.
• Make the first contact by e-mail only to a generic company address with an opt-out, or by letter, fair or introduction.