Business Insolvency & Survival Rates: What UK Business Demography Data Shows

UK business failure is not one simple number. It is a mix of closures, dissolutions, and formal insolvencies, and each dataset counts a different thing.

Here is what the latest official releases available in 2025 show:

• ONS recorded about 2.86 million active businesses in 2024, with 317,000 business births and 280,000 business deaths.
• The five-year survival rate for businesses born in 2019 and still active in 2024 was 38.4%.
• In England and Wales, the Insolvency Service recorded 2,029 registered company insolvencies in October 2025, and a 12-month rolling insolvency rate of 53.4 per 10,000 companies (about 1 in 187).

What counts as a "business death", a dissolution, and an insolvency?

Business death (ONS Business Demography)

ONS "business deaths" are enterprises that cease trading, identified mainly through VAT and PAYE de-registrations. This is about trading activity, not legal status.

Dissolution (Companies House)

A dissolution is a company being removed from the register. Many dissolutions are solvent closures, for example a company that simply stops trading and is struck off.

Insolvency (Insolvency Service)

Insolvency means a company enters a formal insolvency procedure because it cannot pay its debts, such as a creditors' voluntary liquidation (CVL), administration, or a compulsory liquidation.

How many UK businesses are being created and closing?

The annual view, from the ONS Business demography, UK: 2024 bulletin (released 20 November 2025), shows slightly more births and fewer deaths in 2024 than 2023. The ONS also notes that death counts for 2023 and 2024 are provisional.

If you want a more "in-year" signal for 2025, the experimental quarterly series helps. In Quarter 3 2025 (July to September), ONS reported 73,450 business creations and 63,205 business closures on the IDBR, with creations down 3.9% year on year and closures down 1.9% year on year, see Business demography, quarterly, UK: July to September 2025.

Which industries show the most churn and risk?

ONS data shows that churn is not evenly spread. In 2024, transport and storage (including postal) had the highest birth rate (15.6%) and the highest death rate (listed as 16.5% in the table, and discussed as 16.6% in the text, which is consistent with rounding).

Other industry groups with higher birth rates in 2024 include accommodation and food services (14.9%) and business administration and support services (14.4%). These sectors can be dynamic, but they can also be more exposed to demand shocks, cost rises, and cash flow gaps.

What do survival rates say about "staying power"?

The clearest survival measure in the latest annual bulletin is the five-year survival rate. For businesses born in 2019, 38.4% survived into 2024.

There is a big regional spread:

• South West had the highest five-year survival rate at 43.5%.
• West Midlands had the lowest five-year survival rate at 30.6%.

ONS also flags that local patterns can be affected by multiple business registrations at the same address. This matters if you are comparing areas, or trying to use survival rates to plan a regional expansion.

By industry, transport and storage had the lowest five-year survival rate. ONS highlights Wales as having the lowest percentage of transport and storage businesses surviving five years, at 14.8%.

Insolvency in 2025: what the Insolvency Service data says

ONS closures and survival tell you about trading activity. Insolvency statistics tell you about formal distress. The latest monthly snapshot available in 2025 was October.

In England and Wales, Company Insolvency Statistics (October 2025) reported 2,029 registered company insolvencies, up 2% on September 2025 and up 17% on October 2024. The mix in October 2025 was:

• 301 compulsory liquidations
• 1,592 creditors' voluntary liquidations (CVLs)
• 119 administrations
• 17 company voluntary arrangements (CVAs)

The same release reports a 12-month rolling insolvency rate of 53.4 per 10,000 companies on the Companies House effective register (about 1 in 187 companies) for 1 November 2024 to 31 October 2025, slightly higher than the 12-month period ending October 2024.

Dissolutions and register churn: what Companies House shows

If you run a limited company, dissolutions are a key "background" pressure. They can reflect clean, solvent exits, but they also rise when micro-companies quietly stop trading.

Companies House reported that in the financial year ending 31 March 2025, the register size reached 5,427,787, with 801,864 incorporations (down 10.0% on the prior year) and 726,735 dissolutions (up 9.6%), see Companies register activities, April 2024 to March 2025.

The same release also reports 24,229 insolvent liquidations in FYE 2025 (down 1.8% year on year), and 39,841 liquidations and other insolvency proceedings in total (up 8.6%).

For the most recent quarterly movement, Companies House reported 215,982 incorporations and 234,373 dissolutions in July to September 2025, and 432,313 companies in the course of dissolution at the end of September 2025, see Incorporated companies in the UK: July to September 2025.

What this means for 2026 planning

If you are searching in 2026, the key lesson from these datasets is that "failure" has layers. Business deaths and dissolutions can rise or fall without matching the insolvency curve, because they capture different exit routes.

Based on the latest 2024 and 2025 releases, practical takeaways for founders and finance leads are:

• Plan for churn even in normal years. A five-year survival rate of 38.4% for the 2019 cohort means long-run survival is hard, even outside a crisis.
• Watch your sector's baseline volatility. Transport and storage shows high birth rates and high death rates, and it also has the lowest five-year survival by industry in the latest bulletin.
• Do not confuse dissolutions with insolvencies. Dissolutions can be a "quiet exit", while insolvency is a formal process with creditor impact.
• Use rolling rates for trend, not one month. The Insolvency Service's 12-month rolling rate helps reduce noise from single-month spikes.

Conclusion

In 2025, the UK picture is mixed. ONS shows lower business death rates in 2024 and a small rise in births, but survival remains challenging, with only 38.4% of 2019-born businesses still active five years later. At the same time, formal insolvencies in England and Wales were running at around 2,000 a month in autumn 2025, and Companies House data shows high dissolution volumes.

For 2026, the smartest way to read the market is to track all three: ONS business deaths (trading exits), Companies House dissolutions (legal exits), and Insolvency Service statistics (formal distress).