Last Updated on July 10, 2026
Britain incorporated 815,277 new companies in the year to March 2026. In the same year, 787,120 were dissolved.
For every 100 companies born, 97 died. That is the number the startup headlines never mention.
The headline numbers (year to March 2026)
- 815,277 incorporations, up 1.67% on the previous year (Companies House)
- 787,120 dissolutions, up 8.31% on the previous year
- Total register: 5,479,045 companies, up just 0.94%
- Effective register (excluding companies mid-dissolution or in liquidation): 4,930,634
- 463,528 companies were in the course of dissolution at the end of December 2025 alone, up 7.22% in a single quarter
Incorporations recovered slightly after falling from almost 891,000 in the year to March 2024 to 801,864 in the year to March 2025. But dissolutions are growing five times faster than incorporations. The register is churning, not growing.
The quarterly rhythm
Company formation has a seasonal pulse: 209,798 incorporations in April to June 2025, rising to 215,982 in July to September, dropping hard to 184,888 in October to December (a 14.4% fall, the usual pre-Christmas slump), then bouncing back to 204,612 in January to March 2026 as new year resolutions become limited companies.
Where the new companies are
Across calendar year 2025, around 832,000 new companies were registered. London took roughly a third of them, at about 285,000, which works out at around 30 new businesses per 1,000 residents. Manchester was the most entrepreneurial city outside the capital with 23,541 new companies, about 18.5 per 1,000 people.
The fastest growth was not in London at all: the North East (up 5.3%), Scotland (up 4.3%) and the North West (up 3.6%) led the year-on-year increases (NatWest/Beauhurst Startup Index).
The cleanup nobody noticed
Some of the rising dissolution numbers are deliberate. Under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act, Companies House has started using new powers against shell companies, removing around 10,000 companies from the register as part of its crackdown. The register is being scrubbed as well as churned.
Why churn matters more than the headline
In our roofer study we found AI tools recommending “trusted” companies that were 14 days old, and phoenix companies incorporated the day after a same-name predecessor was dissolved. That is what an 800,000-a-year birth rate and an 800,000-a-year death rate looks like on the ground: names that persist while legal entities come and go.
For customers, a company number proves less than people think. For business owners, it is a reminder that longevity is now a genuine differentiator. If you have traded under the same registered company for ten years, that is a trust signal almost none of your newer competitors can copy. Say so, publicly, everywhere your business is listed.
What this means for your business
First, “5.5 million companies” overstates the live market by about half a million. Use the effective register figure when sizing anything.
Second, if you sell to new businesses, the market refreshes by roughly 800,000 every year, and increasingly outside London. The North East, Scotland and the North West are where formation is accelerating.
Third, check who you are trading with. Dissolutions rose 8% last year. A live Companies House check takes thirty seconds and is free. We keep finding that almost nobody does it, including the AI tools your customers now ask for recommendations.
Sources and method
Incorporation, dissolution and register figures: Companies House, Companies Register Activities April 2025 to March 2026 and quarterly Incorporated Companies in the UK releases. Regional and city formation figures: NatWest/Beauhurst New Startup Index 2026. Figures are the latest published as of 10 July 2026.
Related: UK Business Statistics 2026 and UK Self-Employment Statistics 2026.
