UK company insolvency statistics: the sourced numbers

Alex BeardsleyFounder & Director

|Updated August 2026

23,942 registered companies entered insolvency in England and Wales in 2025, according to the Insolvency Service — broadly level with 2024 and about 5% below 2023, which was the highest annual total since 1993. Expressed as a rate, the 12 months to December 2025 saw 52.5 liquidations per 10,000 active companies: roughly 1 in every 190 companies. This page keeps the headline numbers in one place, sourced, for anyone writing or deciding on the back of them.

What kind of insolvency dominates?

Creditors' voluntary liquidations (directors choosing to close an insolvent company) made up 77% of 2025's insolvencies, with compulsory liquidations at 16%, administrations at 6% and CVAs around 1%. The CVL share matters for how you read the total: most UK insolvencies are directors closing the door themselves, not creditors forcing it.

Which sectors carry the most insolvencies?

In the 12 months to December 2025, construction led with 3,950 insolvencies (17% of the total), followed by wholesale and retail trade at 3,773 (16%) and accommodation and food services at 3,372 (14%). Those three sectors (building, shops, hospitality) account for nearly half of UK company failures, and they are also three of the most cash-flow-exposed trades in the economy: project payment cycles, stock cycles, and seasonality respectively.

What should a trading business take from this?

Two things, held together. First, perspective: 1-in-190 annually means the overwhelming majority of companies, even in a hard year, trade on. Second, the pattern behind the failures: insolvency practitioners consistently point to cash flow (not profitability) as the proximate killer, which is why the boring disciplines (an 8-week cash view, early conversations with HMRC and suppliers, funding arranged before the cliff rather than after) appear in every post-mortem. Our pages on cash flow problems and HMRC Time to Pay cover those disciplines; where a position is already unserviceable, a licensed insolvency practitioner or Business Debtline is the right early call, not a lender.

Where lender appetite sits by sector

Sector risk shows up in who will lend against a building. On our panel 36 lenders write offices, 34 write retail, 32 write industrial and 31 write leisure property, while 20 write pubs, 28 write takeaways, 25 write care homes and only 11 write petrol stations. Criteria checked September 2026, and appetite in hospitality moves faster than in any other sector we track.

Distress does not close the market either, though it narrows it sharply and prices differently. 42 bridging lenders on the panel accept slight adverse credit and 19 will read heavy adverse, because the property carries the deal rather than the file. Meanwhile HMRC charges 7.75% on late tax from 9 January 2026, base rate plus 4%, so an unpaid tax bill is itself a form of borrowing and one that escalates.

The blunt reading of the insolvency data is that the sectors with the highest failure counts are also the sectors where lender appetite thins first. That is a reason to have the funding conversation early, while the accounts still read well, rather than at the point where the numbers make the case for you.

The figures a struggling business should have to hand

Three of them are public and free. Companies House charges £150 for accounts filed up to a month late, £375 for one to three months, £750 for three to six months and £1,500 beyond that, doubling for a second year running, and Experian names late filing as a negative factor on the company credit score. The Register of Judgments, Orders and Fines keeps a County Court Judgment for six years unless it is set aside, cancelled, or paid within one calendar month of judgment. And the Bank of England Bank Rate has been 3.75% since 18 December 2025, which is the anchor under every variable facility a business holds.

Those three tell a lender more about how a business is being run than any forecast does. Filings on time, no judgments outstanding, and a clear view of what the existing borrowing already costs. HMRC sits in the same column: it charges 7.75% on late tax from 9 January 2026, which is base rate plus 4%, so a tax bill left to drift is a facility the business has taken out without noticing. Figures read on 7 September 2026.

Sources

• The Insolvency Service, Company Insolvency Statistics — 2025 annual totals, procedure mix, liquidation rate, sector breakdown (monthly releases; figures as published for December 2025).

The Insolvency Service publishes monthly; newer releases supersede these figures. England and Wales only — Scotland and Northern Ireland are published separately.

CapExpand Ltd (FRN 1060885) is an Appointed Representative of White Rose Finance Group Limited, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 630772). We are a credit broker, not a lender. We do not provide financial advice.