Brussels, 2 July 2025 – More than six in ten (61.9%) Belgian entrepreneurs failed to pay their invoices on time in the fourth quarter of 2024. This is according to the latest “Payment Study” by business data expert Altares Dun & Bradstreet. With this result, Belgium ranks last among all Northern European countries in terms of late payments. In contrast, companies in other Northern European countries, such as Denmark (94.2%), Poland (87.5%), and Russia (81.3%), did pay on time.
Paying invoices on time remains a challenge for Belgian companies. More than six in ten businesses (61.9%) paid their bills late in the final quarter of 2024, with 2.4% even exceeding the 90-day deadline. In Q4 2023, 59.6% of companies were late, with 2.3% surpassing the 90-day mark, and in Q4 2022, the figure stood at 56%, of which 1.6% exceeded 90 days. This makes Belgium the slowest payer in Northern Europe for the second year in a row.
The top performers in the class are found in Denmark, where only 5.8% of companies settled their debts after the payment deadline in Q4 2023. Poland follows with 12.5% late payments, and Russia completes the top three with 18.7%.
Late payments are especially common among large enterprises.
The size of Belgian companies also influences their payment behavior. Micro-enterprises, with fewer than five employees, are the fastest to pay their invoices. However, the number of on-time payments within this group is declining: in Q4 2023, 41.7% paid their invoices on time, but by Q4 2024, that figure had dropped to 39.2%.
Large companies with more than 260 employees are the worst payers: only 14% paid their invoices on time in Q4 2024. Medium-sized companies (between 50 and 259 employees) follow with 28.5% on-time payments, while 34.5% of small businesses settled their invoices on time. No matter how you look at it, Belgium scores the lowest in Northern Europe across all company sizes.
“Large Belgian companies still struggle to meet payment deadlines. However, it’s important to note that they don’t pay extremely late. Not a single large company exceeded the payment term by more than 90 days, whereas 2.5% of micro-enterprises did", says Barry de Goeij, Senior Data Scientist at Altares Dun & Bradstreet.
Transport sector records the worst figures for late payments.
Looking at the different sectors, the agricultural sector leads the way: 44.2% of companies in agriculture, forestry, hunting, and fishing paid on time. This marks a decline compared to Q4 2023, when 47.6% still paid within the deadline. The services sector follows with 42.3% of companies paying on time, and the financial sector completes the top three with 42.1%. The transport and distribution sector remains the worst payer for the second year in a row, with only 30.2% paying on time—a slight drop from 31.7% in Q4 2023.
But the real late payers, those who pay more than ninety days late, are found in the retail sector: 4.4% of these companies paid over ninety days late, the same percentage as in Q4 2023. Although the financial sector ranked third among the best payers, 2.3% of late payers in this sector still settled their invoices more than ninety days after the due date.
Textile companies struggle with payments
We see that the Belgian textile and clothing sector, which was already under pressure, is now also paying invoices late more frequently. High energy prices, rising material costs, and dependence on foreign suppliers are significantly squeezing profit margins. On top of that, consumers are increasingly buying clothing from foreign webshops, causing revenues for Belgian retailers and manufacturers to decline further. In 2024, turnover in the clothing industry dropped again, while labor costs continue to rise due to automatic wage indexation. All of this has led to a clear deterioration in payment behavior: the share of invoices paid on time in the “clothing and other textile products” category dropped by 8 percentage points to 35.3%, and in the textile industry by 6.7 percentage points to 31.1%.
“Belgium continues to structurally lag behind when it comes to paying on time, and that puts our economic stability under pressure. Sectors such as retail and textiles are particularly struggling financially, leading to more frequent late payments. Ongoing uncertainty due to geopolitical tensions and economic fluctuations, such as the impact of international trade tariffs, further exacerbates the situation. Late payments not only create headaches for the companies themselves, but also trigger a domino effect throughout the entire supply chain,” says De Goeij.
View the full report here.
