Business registrations in Portugal climb 7.7% in Q2

In the second quarter of this year, the number of new businesses in Portugal grew by over 7%, above the European Union average (-1.2%).

Registrations of new businesses in the European Union (EU) declined by 1.2% in the second quarter compared with the previous quarter, while declarations of bankruptcies increased by 2.2%, according to data published this Wednesday by Eurostat. However, Portugal is counter-cyclical with the 27 member states, being the second country with the higher number of new companies.

Looking at the indicators by each member state, the highest quarter-on-quarter increases in registrations of new businesses were observed in Romania (+20.9%), Portugal (+7.7%) and Slovakia (+6.7%). The largest decreases were seen in Lithuania (-8.8 %), Denmark (-5.9 %) and Italy (-5.2 %).

The largest falls in the number of declarations of bankruptcies were found in Slovakia (-18.3 %), Estonia (-18.1 %) and Hungary (-11.7 %). The highest increases in bankruptcy declarations were observed in Latvia (+74.4 %), Belgium (+14.7 %) and Denmark (+11.9 %). In Portugal, there was a jump of 7.7% (i.e. above the EU average).

Focusing on the number of new businesses by activity, Eurostat says “for most sectors of the economy the number of registrations of new businesses was generally on an upward trend from 2015 until end of 2019, for example in industry, construction, transport, accommodation and food services, financial and insurance activities, information and communication,” adding that “between 2015 and 2019, only the trade sector did not show an increase in the number of registrations.”

As for bankruptcies, “only the construction and the information and communication sectors registered decreases in the number of bankruptcies in the second quarter of 2022, compared with the previous quarter (-12% and -4%, respectively),” explains the statistics office. On the opposite end, transportation and storage (+16%) and education, health and social activities (+12%) were the activities with the highest increases in the number of bankruptcies in the second quarter.