How many companies are formed in the UK each week?
Updated 30 October 2026 · by Matt Vallis, Salenovo · numbers from the Companies House public register
About 15,020 companies were incorporated in the UK in the week of 19 October to 25 October 2026. That's roughly 3,004 every working day, or around 781,000 a year at that rate. The 52-week average for the same time a year earlier, adjusted for companies dissolved since, was 15,795 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 17% 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. Of the 2,502,259 companies formed in the UK in 2022, 2023 and 2024, 53.3% had been dissolved and 33.4% were trading by September 2026; the rest were dormant or in strike-off. Companies formed since the fee rise of May 2024 do better (about two in five trade), so of the 15,020 formed last week, expect about 6,209 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 35 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 3,004 on a typical working day at the current rate (15,020 in the week of 19 October to 25 October 2026), and very few at weekends.
How many companies are formed in the UK each year?
At the current weekly rate, around 781,000 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's 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.