Increase in business registrations and bankruptcies in the EU

In the third quarter of 2020, the quarter when COVID-19 containment measures were somewhat relaxed in many Member States, the number of registrations of new businesses in the EU saw a significant increase compared with the previous quarter (up by 45.3%). This broke the trend of falling registration numbers in both the first and second quarters of 2020.

The number of declarations of bankruptcies in the EU increased by 25.7% in the third quarter of 2020 after a sharp decrease in the first and second quarters of 2020, according to figures released by Eurostat.

Year-on-year comparison shows that the number of registrations of new businesses increased by 2.2 % in the EU in the third quarter of 2020 compared with the same quarter a year before, while the number of registered bankruptcies decreased by 17.7 %.

Eurostat explained that The decrease of registrations and bankruptcies in the first two quarters of 2020 may be largely explained by the fact that the respective administrations responsible for the recording of registrations and bankruptcies were temporarily not accessible or closed and therefore these events could not be reported immediately, but with a delay.

Governments may also have allowed additional time for completing the administrative pr​​​​​​​ocedures. Finally, for bankruptcies, government measures supporting businesses during the crisis may have allowed businesses that would otherwise have filed for bankruptcy to continue their activities.