What proportion of new UK companies actually trade?
Updated 30 October 2026 · by Matt Vallis, Salenovo · numbers from the Companies House public register
About a third, and about two in five since the fee rise of May 2024. Of the 2,502,259 companies incorporated in the UK in 2022, 2023 and 2024, 33.4% were trading when we checked in September 2026, 53.3% had already been dissolved, and the rest were dormant or being struck off. Of the 15,020 formed in the week of 19 October to 25 October 2026, expect roughly 6,209 to become trading businesses.
What "trading" means here
A company counts as trading when it's still active and has filed accounts that aren't dormant accounts. That's the strictest definition available from the public record: a company that was set up, did some business and closed within eighteen months would not count, and neither would one that's genuinely trading but hasn't yet filed. It's the right definition for anyone who wants to sell to new businesses, because it's the ones that survive to file accounts that buy accountancy, insurance, premises and software.
The figures, by cohort
| Companies incorporated | How many | Dissolved | Trading | Dormant | Strike-off / insolvency | Age when checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Every company formed 2022 to 2024 (36 months) | 2,502,259 | 53.3% | 33.4% | 8.2% | 3.1% | 1.7 to 4.7 years |
| Formed January 2022 to September 2023, at exactly 36 months | 1,407,915 | 51.9% | 32.1% (today) | n/a | n/a | 3.0 years |
| March 2022 (every company) | 77,267 | 59.1% | 32.3% | 5.4% | 3.2% | 4.5 years |
| March 2024 (every company) | 80,024 | 50.9% | 35.0% | 9.8% | 3.9% | 2.5 years |
Source: Companies House public register, checked September 2026. The first row is every company formed in the three years; the second measures companies at exactly three years old so that cohorts are compared at the same age. The March 2024 cohort is younger, so more of it is still dormant and less has been dissolved.
Why so many never trade
Three reasons account for most of it. Most companies that disappear were never started: they miss the first confirmation statement, due at twelve months, and are struck off by the registrar about five months later. Nearly half of all dissolutions happen at exactly seventeen months of age. Some are vehicles rather than businesses: a company that holds one property, a personal holding company, a dormant subsidiary. And a measurable share are formed in bulk at a handful of addresses and kept dormant; at the worst of these addresses fewer than 5% of companies ever trade. Since Companies House raised the incorporation fee from £12 to £50 in May 2024, fewer companies are formed each month: 15% fewer in May to August 2024 than in the same months of 2023, and about a quarter fewer than in the four months before the change, which included the April rush. The share that go on to trade has risen from a third to about two in five (what the fee rise did).
Can you tell in advance?
Partly, and better than chance. Companies with two or more founding directors, a director with years of previous experience, a distinctive name whose domain already resolves, and an address that is neither a mass-formation agent nor a shelf-company cluster trade far more often than the average. Salenovo's model turns those signals into five bands: on companies it had never seen, band A went on to trade 67% of the time and band E 15%, against 39% of all the companies in that test. The method page has the full results and what's deliberately left out of the model.
What it means if you sell to new businesses
If you write to every new company in your area, two-thirds of the letters go to companies that will never need you. Ranking them first roughly doubles the hit rate of the same effort. The use-case pages work through the arithmetic for accountants, brokers, agencies and suppliers.
Questions people also ask
What percentage of new UK companies fail?
Within three years, 51.9% of the companies formed between January 2022 and September 2023 had been dissolved; within about four and a half years, 59.1% of those formed in March 2022. Not all of those failed in the everyday sense (most never started), and only 32.3% of the March 2022 companies were trading.
How long does a new company take to start trading?
Most trading companies file their first non-dormant accounts about 21 months after incorporation, which is the first hard evidence on the public record. Earlier signs appear in the first weeks and months: a website, a registered food premises, an ICO registration, a VAT number on the site.
Are companies formed through formation agents less likely to trade?
As a group, yes: companies at mass-formation addresses trade about 23% of the time in our cohorts, against 34% at their own address, and a few shelf-company clusters are below 1%. Individual agents vary a great deal, and some serviced offices are well above the national rate.
Where do these figures come from?
The Companies House public register: every company incorporated in the cohort months, followed through to its status and filings in September 2026. Nothing is sampled; the counts are of every company.