Frequently asked questions about setting up a business

• How and when will I receive a Chamber of Commerce number?

  Once you have submitted your registration, it will be verified and checked for completeness. After all, it must comply with all the applicable legislation. If your registration is complete, your company will be listed in the Commercial Register. At that point, you will be assigned a Chamber of Commerce number. The number is unique and will remain linked to your company. That number is recorded on your extract and you must always state it on all your outgoing correspondence (such as invoices, quotations, etc.)

• Is it possible to convert my sole trader business to a private/public limited company?

  Yes, that’s possible. You will need to visit a civil-law notary to convert your business to a legal entity (both private limited companies and public limited companies are legal entities). The civil-law notary can arrange the incorporation of a private limited company/public limited company. However, you must inform the civil-law notary that you are converting an existing company (in this case, a sole trader business). You can keep the same Chamber of Commerce number that was assigned to you as a sole trader. The sole trader’s details will be re-written as the details of the private/public limited company. You must take into account, however, that you must also switch the permits that are held in name of your sole trader business to the new private/public limited company.

• How do I know which permits or licences I need to apply for as a business?

  You have registered your business in the Commercial Register. One of the questions you were asked was: “Which activities will you actually perform?” It is an important question because the answer is an indicator of the permits or licences you do (or do not) need to apply for.

  At the Commercial Register, we often see business owners who want to do “everything” so they want to register 50 activities (varying from carpenter to gardener, from car rental company to restaurant/café proprietor). It is all permitted, but there is a downside: you see, you need to apply for licences for very many of those activities if you list them in the Commercial Register: it can be quite expensive and require lots of time and energy to arrange it all.