What happens if you file your annual accounts late?

Most entrepreneurs know that the annual accounts have to go to KVK. What is far less known is exactly when, and what happens if that date passes. Below is which deadline applies, where you notice it, and how to put it right.

Which deadline applies?

KVK formulates it as an outer limit: the annual accounts must in any case be filed within 12 months of the end of the financial year. The precise deadline depends on the type of legal entity; KVK has a separate page for that with the deadlines per situation.

More important than those 12 months is the order: first you adopt the annual accounts, then you file them. For a BV, that adoption happens at the general meeting. Whoever leaves adoption too late automatically runs into problems with the filing — even if the figures have been ready for a long time.

Where do you notice it?

The trade register is public. Anyone who requests an extract — a bank in a financing application, a supplier offering credit terms, a potential buyer — can see whether and when a filing was made. Missing or outdated annual accounts stand out, even if nobody says a word about it.

It gets more serious if a company runs into financial difficulties. The law states that not publishing the annual accounts, or not publishing them in time, counts in the assessment of whether a director has mismanaged the company (article 2:248(2) Dutch Civil Code). In a bankruptcy that can affect a director personally. The text is in Book 2 of the Dutch Civil Code; get advice on this if it affects you.

The obligation does not disappear

Late does not mean it no longer has to be done. You can still file annual accounts after the deadline, and that is almost always better than leaving it: the public record is then in order at least, and the signal to the bank and the Belastingdienst is different.

How to put it right

How to tackle that without an office of your own is set out at without an accountant.

1. 1.Work out what is still missing: have the annual accounts been prepared at all, and have they been adopted?
2. 2.Finish the figures and make them reconcile. Annual accounts that do not balance are not accepted — the balance sheet has to add up.
3. 3.Put the annual accounts to the general meeting and have them adopted.
4. 4.Then file them through filing with KVK, yourself or through your bookkeeper.
5. 5.Keep the confirmation in your records. See also how long you must keep your records.

Preventing it from happening again

The cause is almost never unwillingness but postponement: the figures are not ready, the bookkeeper is busy, and before you know it the year has gone. Anyone who keeps their records up to date and prepares the annual accounts in a quiet month does not have that problem.

With the wizard you go through the steps in one go, with the balance-sheet check included, and then download the documents you need. See also the deadlines in a row and what exactly goes to KVK.