Business registrations and bankruptcies in the EU 

This post presents data on the number of new business registrations and the number of bankruptcy declarations in the European Union (EU) and in the euro area (EA) until the second quarter of 2021.

The data is based on the absolute number of registrations and bankruptcies sent to Eurostat by EU Member States on a voluntary basis until the fourth quarter of 2020 and on a mandatory basis since the first quarter of 2021.

Generally, the number of registrations of new businesses has increased in the EU since 2015 until the end of 2019. The trend was interrupted with a drop in the first and second quarters of 2020, to recover again in the third quarter of 2020. There was a slight decrease in the fourth quarter of 2020. The number of registrations showed then a very slight increase in the first quarter of 2021 and a more noticeable increase in the second quarter of 2021.

In the second quarter of 2021, registrations of new businesses increased by 5.3% when compared with the previous quarter.

For declared bankruptcies, there was a 1.8% growth in the second quarter of 2021 compared with the first quarter of 2021.

Year-on-year comparisons show that the number of registrations of new businesses increased by 53% in the second quarter of 2021 compared with a year earlier, while the number of registered bankruptcies increased by 24%.

*The decrease in bankruptcies, in particular in the first two quarters of 2020, can be explained by the government measures supporting businesses during the crisis, which allowed the businesses to avoid declaring bankruptcy.

Source: Eurostat

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