Behind the headline-making names disappearing from the market, however, lie less obvious conclusions about the age of the companies, their size, and their location. An analysis of bankruptcy cases shows that the industry is becoming increasingly vulnerable to economic shocks.
Record number of bankruptcies in 2025
According to data from the TLV association, in 2025 the road freight transport sector in Belgium recorded 413 bankruptcies, compared with 307 a year earlier. This represents a clear year-on-year increase in the scale of the problem. For comparison, in 2015 the figure was 163, and in 2020, 97 transport companies in Belgium declared bankruptcy.
The highest number of bankruptcies in 2025 fell in the fourth quarter, when insolvencies reached 129 cases.
Long-term data also points to a broader trend: after the pandemic-related drop in bankruptcies in 2020, subsequent years have brought a steady increase, indicating structural tensions in the industry.
It’s not only small players going under
Among the bankrupt businesses were both small entities and companies well known in the market, employing more than 20 people and operating for many years. This includes among others, companies such as Group De Wolf, Transnam, Geleyte, Vebotrans, Hansbeeks Snelvervoer, Eurosped Belgium, Bongaerts Logistics, Transport Lerinckx Stefaan, Supreme Transport and Dalga-Trans. Some assets were taken over by other carriers, and some companies underwent restructuring, but the collapse of major names reinforced the sense of a deteriorating situation in the industry.
At the same time, the statistics show that transport is more sensitive than the economy on average. According to analyses, the number of bankruptcies in the broadly defined transport and logistics sector increased by 19%.
Shorter lifespan of transport companies
An analysis of 406 bankruptcy cases shows that transport companies have a shorter life cycle than the economy-wide average.
Only 8.3% of bankrupt companies had been operating for more than 20 years, while nearly 46% were less than five years old. This is clearly a higher share of young companies than in nationwide statistics, indicating greater fragility of business models in transport.
At the same time, one third of the failed entities were micro-companies, whose scale of operations in practice corresponded to a single vehicle.
The geography of bankruptcies doesn’t match the industry map
The regional distribution of bankruptcies differs significantly from the distribution of transport companies across the country. As much as 28.5% of bankruptcies were recorded in the Brussels-Capital Region, even though only 9.6% of carriers operate there. By contrast, some regions, such as West Flanders, are clearly underrepresented in terms of the number of insolvencies.
Financial problems and a sudden loss of profitability
Nearly 29.8% of companies never published a balance sheet or operated for years without up-to-date statements, which does not necessarily indicate irregularities, but points to weak financial transparency in part of the market. In about 11.3% of cases, companies experienced rapid growth, followed by a sudden loss of profitability , while in around 12% of businesses the level of activity remained stable, but financial performance and equity gradually deteriorated.
Company size structure in the statistics
TLV data shows that the largest number of bankruptcies concerns the smallest businesses. In 2025, the largest group consisted of companies with one to five vehicles, while bankruptcies of large operators were relatively rare.
This confirms that the smallest entities are the most exposed to fluctuations in costs and market conditions.
A warning signal for the market
The combination of a rising number of bankruptcies, a shorter company life cycle, and a concentration of insolvencies in specific regions points to structural tensions in Belgian road transport.
Rising cost pressure and low profitability mean that even a short-term deterioration in market conditions can quickly translate into a loss of liquidity, especially among the smallest carriers.
For the European market, this is a clear signal that the stability of the transport sector remains highly dependent on margins, access to capital, and companies’ ability to manage risk amid growing economic volatility.
This confirms that regulatory cost drivers such as ETS2 can materially affect hauliers’ margins and resilience.
