Abridged balance sheet: what do you publish at the KVK?

A private limited company (BV) must file its annual accounts with the KVK, but does not have to put everything in them. For micro and small legal entities exemptions exist: the public document is then an abridged version of what you have in your own records.

Who may abridge?

Whether you fall under micro or small is tested against three criteria: balance sheet total, net turnover and the average number of employees. You look at two consecutive balance sheet dates. The current thresholds differ per class and are adjusted; check them with the KVK or your accountant before relying on them.

What is in the filing document?

• •The balance sheet, in the abridged format.
• •Limited notes: for micro and small legal entities these need to be much shorter than the full notes.
• •The information the KVK requires to include the document (filing data).
• •For a BV: the signature of the management board.

What stays outside the public document?

What should be in the annual accounts of a BV is set out item by item on that page.

For micro and small legal entities the profit and loss account may be omitted from the filed document (articles 2:396 and 2:397 of the Dutch Civil Code). The extensive notes and the management report also do not have to be made public. So you do prepare them for yourself, the shareholders and the bank — but they do not go to the trade register.

What filing exactly means and by which deadline it must happen is explained in filing with the KVK.

Where it goes wrong

• •The abridged balance sheet is prepared with different totals than the full one, so the document no longer reconciles.
• •Signing is forgotten, or the date is missing.
• •A micro legal entity accidentally publishes the full notes and thereby discloses more than necessary.
• •The document is filed late: eight days after adoption, or no later than 12 months after the end of the financial year.

When preparing the annual accounts you see per item whether it is mandatory, and whether it ends up in the public document — that saves searching through the legal text.