Business registrations and bankruptcies rise in Q3 2025

In the third quarter of 2025, the number of registrations of EU businesses increased by 4.0% compared with the second quarter of 2025.

At the same time, the number of bankruptcy declarations increased by 4.4% compared with the second quarter of 2025.

This information comes from data on business registrations and bankruptcies published by Eurostat today. This article presents a handful of findings from the more detailed Statistics Explained article on quarterly registrations of new businesses and declarations of bankruptcies.

Source dataset: sts_rb_q

Business registrations continue to increase

In the third quarter of 2025, the number of business registrations increased across all sectors of the economy compared with the previous quarter. The highest growth was in the information and communication sector (+6.0%), followed by construction (+5.9%) and transport (+5.5%).

Increasing bankruptcy declarations with mixed trends

In the third quarter of 2025, the bankruptcy declarations increased and showed mixed trends across sectors. The number of bankruptcies increased in 5 sectors, while 3 others registered a decrease. The largest increases were recorded in accommodation and food services (+20.7%), transport (+18.7%) and financial services (+14.1%). Decreases in bankruptcies were registered in information and communication (-4.8%), construction (-3.1%) and industry (-0.1%).