More businesses opened than dissolved in the EU in 2023

In 2023, there were over 33 million enterprises in the EU. While 3.5 million new enterprises were born that year, 2.8 million enterprise deaths were registered, based on the preliminary enterprise death data. The enterprise birth rate was 10.5%, while the rate of enterprise deaths stood at 8.5%.

This information comes from data on business demography published by Eurostat today. The article presents some findings from the more detailed Statistics Explained article on business demography.

Source dataset: bd_size

In most EU countries, more companies were created than dissolved in 2023. The exceptions were Bulgaria, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Poland and Slovakia, where the death rates of enterprises were higher than the birth rates.

The highest enterprise birth rates were recorded in Lithuania (19.6%), Malta (17.1%) and Portugal (16.8%). By contrast, the lowest rates were registered in Austria (6.2%), Denmark (7.3%) and Italy (7.8%).

On the other hand, the highest preliminary death rates of enterprises were registered in Estonia (27.5%), Ireland (16.6%) and Bulgaria (16.5%). The lowest rates were registered in Hungary (2.6%), Greece (3.4%) and the Netherlands (5.0%).

During the period from 2020 to 2023, the share of enterprises with high employment growth increased to 10.5%, compared to the previous three-year period (2019 to 2022) where it stood at 9.2%. This share corresponded to around 180 000 high-growth enterprises in the EU in 2023. High-growth enterprises are enterprises that have had at least 10 employees at the beginning of a 3-year period and an annual growth in the number of employees above 10% during that period.