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Company incorporations data - ONS

ended 25. January 2024

The ONS has just published data on the number of company incorporations, key points below, full report >> here <<. Any thoughts, such as whether this shows more people are setting up businesses after the pandemic, or due to side hustles that have taken off, send them across.

  • The number of incorporations between October and December 2023 increased by 30,363 (16.5%) compared with the same period in 2022.
  • At the end of December 2023, there were 5,267,187 companies on the total register and 4,796,341 on the effective register.
  • During the period October to December 2023, the total register increased by 53,771 companies (1.0%), and the effective register increased by 50,894 companies (1.1%).
  • Between October and December 2023, there were 214,446 incorporations and 163,452 dissolutions in the UK.
  • The number of dissolutions between October and December 2023 increased by 46,760 (40.1%) compared with the same period in 2022.
  • The number of companies in the course of removal in the period October to December 2023 decreased by 11,792 (3.2%) compared with October to December 2022.

3 responses from the Newspage community

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Marcus Wright
Managing Director at Bolton Business Finance
Britain is as entreprenuerial as ever, there has never been a period in history when it was easier to set up your own businessthe. Latest companies house data from ONS showing company creations out pacing closures/insolvencies. We are seeing a number of reasons for this with our clients. The majority of new buy to let purchases from landlords are now made via a limited company, mainly due to tax benefits. We are also seeing a surge in people starting online businesses like ecommerce stores, often while still employed with the hope of quitting once its profitable enough.
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Jo Spolton
Founder at Rumage
For many people side hustles are a viable way to fend off the rising cost-of-living. The Start-up ecosystem in the last year has been really busy with over 400 members on WhatsApp groups, such as start-ups in London, Entrepreneurs Collective, Female Founders Rise and others.
The flipside to this is that funding and investment for early stage businesses has been very difficult to navigate. With angels watching the economy teeter along the line of recession, and the counter balance of higher interest rates, many fledgling businesses have closed as quickly as they opened..
The possibility of the government rewriting the rules of who is able to invest as a high net worth individual, will only serve to compound this problem.
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Alastair Hoyne
CEO, Finanze Capital at Finanze Capital
It's clear the entrepreneurial spirit is still alive and kicking, despite the turbulent economic winds. We've seen a significant number of property investors setting up new businesses over the last 12 months including landlords who want to take advantage of tax breaks available for Ltd companies and those using Title Splitting strategies to boost their portfolios. Looking at the other side of the coin, the high level of dissolutions could be indicative of a Covid-hangover with many of the Bounce Back Loans falling into default as businesses struggled to survive. These are the headlines, what's the news?