For reasons of transparency and the protection of third parties, businesses are required to file their annual accounts online with the Trade and Companies Register (registre de commerce et des sociétés - RCS) and to mention the filing of the accounts in the Electronic Compendium of Companies and Associations (recueil électronique des sociétés et associations - RESA).

The general public can subsequently consult the filed accounts on the website of the RCS.

Who is concerned

The annual accounts of the following companies must be lodged with the RCS:

• capital companies (sociétés de capitaux) (SA, SARL, SECA, cooperative companies, SE);
• partnerships (SENC and SECS) and traders who are natural persons with an annual turnover excluding VAT in excess of EUR 100,000;
• Luxembourg branch offices from foreign companies (except credit institutions and insurance and reinsurance companies);
• groups (EIG, EEIG) or branch offices of groups.

Preliminary steps

Unless they are allowed to use IFRS, businesses who file their accounts must:

• show the balance of their accounts in accordance with the standard chart of accounts;
• and validate their annual financial statements on the eCDF platform before lodging them with the RCS.

Deadlines

The annual financial statements and the appropriation of income must be approved within the 6 months following the end of the calendar year (for natural persons established as traders) or of the financial year (for legal persons):

• by the partner's general meeting in the case of a limited liability company (SARL) or a simplified limited liability company (SARL-S);
• by the shareholders' general meeting in the case of a public limited company (SA);
• by the shareholders' general meeting with the approval of the business managers in the case of a partnership limited by shares (SECA or SCA);
• by the business managers in the case of a partnership (SENC);
• by the trader himself, natural person, in the case of a sole proprietorship.

Annual financial statements must be lodged within one month after their approval, i.e. 7 months after the end of the calendar year for natural persons established as traders, or 7 months after the end of the financial year for legal persons.

Costs

The costs for registration and lodging are available on the website of the Trade and Companies Register (RCS).

Payment is usually carried out online, but may exceptionally be made in cash at the helpdesk of the Luxembourg Business Registers (LBR).

The costs are due on an individual basis for each account registered. However, in the case of regular and recurrent registrations, it is possible to submit to the LBR an application for accreditation in order to ensure payment through monthly invoicing.

How to proceed

Online lodging

Applicants have to file their accounting package online with the Trade and Companies Register (RCS) using a LuxTrust certificate.

At the time of lodging the accounts applicants must:

• indicate, where applicable, that the annual financial statements were properly validated on the eCDF platform by ticking the appropriated box, so that the LBR can automatically collect the accounting data from the eCDF platform, namely:
  • the balance sheet;
  • the profit and loss accounts;
  • the account balance;
• join other unstructured financial documents in PDF/A format, namely:
  • the notes to the financial statements;
  • the management report;
  • the report from the person responsible for auditing the accounts;
  • the annual financial statements for businesses not subject to the standard chart of accounts (plan comptable normalisé - PCN) (e.g. Soparfi).

The filing notification of accounts is automatically generated by the RCS at the moment the request to lodge the annual financial statements is accepted.

Once the lodging has been processed, the documents submitted which now carry a virtual label providing proof of lodging with the RCS, can be downloaded in the personal eSpace made available to the applicant on the website of the RCS (in the section "mes commandes").

Publication and consultation of the accounts

After filing the accounts with the Trade and Companies Register (RCS), the filing notification of accounts is published in the electronic compendium of companies and associations (RESA) on the day of the filing or on a set date, chosen by the applicant at the time of application for filing, within a 15-day deadline after the filing.

The filing notification is materialised through a new line inserted in the electronic compendium of companies and associations. The filed annual financial statements can be consulted, except if otherwise provided for by law, in the following formats:

• in PDF format under 'Consulter une personne' on the website of the RCS;
• or, at a later point in time, in a structured format (xls, xml) in the Central Balance Sheet Unit (Centrale des Bilans).

However, the filing notification is not published and the accounts are not available for consultation for the following types of businesses:

• SENC and SECS where none of the partners is an SA, SARL, SCA (or any similar foreign form) or if all of the partners are SAs, SARLs, SCAs (or any similar foreign form) and none of them publishes the accounts of the business in question along with their own accounts;
• natural persons established as traders;
• economic interest group (groupement d'intérêt économique - GIE).

Forms / Online services

Who to contact