In the first quarter of 2021, registrations of new businesses increased slightly compared with the previous quarter (by 0.3%). For declared bankruptcies, there was a 5.8% growth in the first quarter of 2021 compared with the fourth quarter of 2020.
Year-on-year comparisons show that the number of registrations of new businesses increased by 11.8% in the first quarter of 2021 compared with a year earlier, while the number of registered bankruptcies increased by 7.3%, reads the recent data of EuroStat.
Generally, the number of registrations of new businesses has increased in the EU since 2015 until the end of 2019. The trend was broken in the first and second quarters of 2020, to recover again in the third quarter and to show a slight decrease in the fourth quarter of 2020. The number of registrations showed a slight increase in the first quarter of 2021.
As to the number of declarations of bankruptcies, there has been a clear downward trend in the last years, turning considerably upwards from the third quarter of 2020. The upward trend continued in the fourth quarter of 2020 and also in the first quarter of 2021.
When comparing the first quarter of 2021 with the fourth quarter of 2020 among Member States, for which data are available, the largest increases in the registrations of new businesses were observed in Lithuania (+16.2 %), Bulgaria (+12.0 %) and Italy (+6.0 %). The largest decreases were observed in Slovakia (-24.2 %), Portugal (-14.9 %) and Latvia (-7.9 %).
Comparing the first quarter of 2021 with the fourth quarter of 2020, the largest decreases in the number of declarations of bankruptcies were found in Latvia (-42.2 %), Estonia (-23.7 %) and the Netherlands (-20.1 %). The highest increases in bankruptcy declarations were observed in Romania (+72.1 %), Poland (+16.6 %) and Spain (+16.2 %).
The decrease in bankruptcies, observed in many Member States until the second quarter of 2020, can be explained by the government measures supporting businesses during the crisis which allowed the businesses to continue their activities and to avoid declaring bankruptcy.
In the fourth quarter of 2020 and in the first quarter of 2021, the number of registrations of new businesses increased particularly in the transportation sector and in the information and communication, while the largest decreases were observed in accommodation and food services, in education, health and social activities and in the trade sector.
The number of declarations of bankruptcies showed a downward trend from 2015 to 2019 in the EU, turning considerably upwards from the third quarter of 2020. In the first quarter of 2021 the number of bankruptcy declarations increased for the vast majority of sectors in the economy. The most significant increases were in the transport sector, in accommodation and food services and in education and social activities. The bankruptcy declarations rose moderately in industry and construction. The only exception was information and communication, where there was a slight decrease.
