In the third quarter of 2023, the number of bankruptcies declared by EU businesses decreased by 5.8% compared to the previous quarter. Despite this decrease, overall, the number of bankruptcy declarations in 2023 has been higher since the pre-pandemic period (i.e., the fourth quarter of 2019). Meanwhile, there was a slight increase in new business registrations for the third quarter in a row, up by 0.7%, compared to the second quarter of this year. This information comes from data on business registrations and bankruptcies published by Eurostat today.
Looking at bankruptcies by activity, most sectors registered a decrease in the number of bankruptcies in the third quarter of 2023 compared with the previous quarter. Transportation and storage had the highest decrease (41.3%), followed by accommodation and food services (-28.4%) and education, health and social activities (-12.3%). However, there were increases in some sectors: information and communication (+25.3%), industry (+4.6%) and construction (+0.1%).
Compared to the pre-pandemic fourth quarter of 2019, half of all sectors recorded a higher number of bankruptcies in the third quarter of 2023: accommodation and food services, information and communication, education, health and social activities and financial, insurance, real estate activities all had a higher number of bankruptcies than before