How many companies are formed in the UK each week?
Updated 15 September 2026 · by Matt Vallis, Salenovo · numbers from the Companies House public register
About 14,543 companies were incorporated in the UK in the week of 7 September–13 September 2026 — roughly 2,909 every working day, or around 756,000 a year at that rate. The 52-week average for the same time a year earlier, counting companies still on the register, was 14,838 a week. Around a third of them will go on to trade.
Where the number comes from
Companies House publishes every new incorporation on the public register the day it happens. Salenovo collects the register every morning and counts the companies formed in each Monday-to-Sunday week, by council, region and postcode area. The count above is companies limited by shares, by guarantee and LLPs; it excludes re-registrations and overseas entities. The UK page shows the last sixteen weeks as a chart and every region and council beneath it.
How it varies
Formation is strongly weekly: Monday to Friday see almost all of it, and the first week of a month and the weeks after the Christmas and Easter holidays run high. Over the summer the weekly number drifts down; January and March run above average. Roughly 15% of a typical week's companies are registered at a mass-formation or virtual-office address rather than at the founder's own premises, which is why London boroughs such as Camden, Hackney and Islington top the raw league tables — the address is the agent's, not the business's.
How many of them are real businesses?
Fewer than half. On the six quarters of companies formed between January 2022 and June 2023, 58.6% had been dissolved and 32.2% were trading by the time we checked; the rest were dormant or in strike-off. So of the 14,543 formed last week, expect about 5,261 to become trading businesses. More on that here.
Longer-run figures
Companies House's own statistical releases give the official annual and quarterly totals by country and region, which have run at well over 800,000 incorporations a year in recent years. Salenovo's weekly series starts in June 2026 and is unbiased from that point: it counts every company on the day it was formed, whereas any count taken from today's register for an earlier period misses the companies that have since been dissolved.
Your own area
Every local authority has a page — Chelmsford, for example, saw 41 last week — and the explorer compares any two areas on any measure. Councils and journalists are welcome to quote the numbers with attribution to Salenovo and Companies House; the monthly index has the month's totals and a downloadable table.
Questions people also ask
How many companies are registered in the UK each day?
About 2,909 on a typical working day at the current rate (14,543 in the week of 7 September–13 September 2026), and very few at weekends.
How many companies are formed in the UK each year?
At the current weekly rate, around 756,000 a year. Companies House's official statistics have recorded well over 800,000 a year recently.
Which part of the UK forms the most companies?
London, by a wide margin, though a large share of London's total is companies registered at formation agents' and virtual offices' addresses rather than businesses based there. The Formation Index shows the share at agent addresses for every council.
Where can I get a list of the companies formed this week?
The company names for any council are free on its Formation Index page. The ranked list with what each company does, whether it is likely to trade and how to reach it is the paid weekly list — 29 pounds a month per council at the founding price, locked for twelve months (49 pounds standard), two weeks free.