# How many advertising agencies are there in Belgium?

**Short answer.** IKAg tracks 1.217 across Belgium and the Netherlands; in financial year 2024, 804 Belgian agencies had a gross margin above 50,000 euro. The rest are small, and the names you hear are the same thirty.

The answer depends on what you call an agency, and that is not word play: the counts differ by a factor of ten.

## Three counts, three answers

**1.217 agencies** sit in IKAg's database, for Belgium and the Netherlands together. These are the agencies we track: creative, media, digital, PR, activation and the specialists in between.

**1,018 Belgian agencies** filed at least one readable set of annual accounts since 2021, together good for 4,242 financial years.

**804 agencies** were active in financial year 2024 in the sense that matters: a gross margin above 50,000 euro. That is the threshold the Agency Barometer uses, and it separates an agency from a one-person sideline.

Count every company that calls itself a communication agency and you reach the thousands. That count is correct and useless: the vast majority have one or two people and will never be on your longlist.

## Why you only ever hear thirty names

The market is narrow at the top. A handful of network agencies and a few dozen independents do the most visible work, and those are the names that come up in every meeting. Below them lies a long tail of small agencies, and that is exactly where the specialists sit who often fit a specific brief better.

Which is also why a longlist should rarely start with the names you know: you build it on what you need, not on who you have heard of.

## How to search this market

IKAg's factsheets are open: you can browse [by expertise](https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/expertises), [by sector](https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/sectoren), [by location](https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/plaatsen) and [by group](https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/groepen). Each agency shows its services, reference clients, awards and the figures from its filed annual accounts.

See also: [what types of agency exist](https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/faq/soorten-bureaus), [how big the average agency is](https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/faq/hoe-groot-is-een-gemiddeld-bureau) and [how to find a good agency](https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/faq/hoe-vind-ik-een-goed-bureau).

## Related questions

- [What types of agency are there?](https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/faq/soorten-bureaus): Roughly six families: creative, media, digital, PR and communication, activation and events, and the specialists. The labels are blurring, so buy on what an agency actually does, not on what it calls itself.
- [How big is the average agency?](https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/faq/hoe-groot-is-een-gemiddeld-bureau): Smaller than you think: the median growing agency in the Belgian market had 7.1 full-time equivalents and the median shrinking one 7.8. The agencies you know are the exception, not the average.
- [How do I find a good agency?](https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/faq/hoe-vind-ik-een-goed-bureau): Start from work you admire and find out who made it, not from a list on Google. Then build a longlist of about six and test them on fit, capacity and financial stability.

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IKAg is the business consultant for marketing and agencies in Belgium and the Netherlands. Market figures come from the Agency Barometer, calculated on the annual accounts agencies filed with the National Bank themselves. Figures on pitches and satisfaction come from IKAg-guided processes, and are always presented as such.

- All questions: https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/faq
- Last updated: 2026-08-19