UK Company Insolvency Tracker

There were 1,882 registered company insolvencies in England and Wales in September 2026, 4% lower than August 2026 and 5% lower than September 2025, according to the Insolvency Service. Over the 12 months to September 2026 that is a rate of 49.9 per 10,000 companies, or 1 in 200, down from 52.8 a year earlier. Creditors voluntary liquidations, where directors choose to close an insolvent company, made up 1,420 of the September total (75%). The rate remains far below the 2008-09 recession peak of 113.1 per 10,000, largely because the company register has more than doubled in size since then. Insolvency Service, gov.uk

Data as of: September 2026 figures, published 20 October 2026 · Source: Insolvency Service, Company Insolvency Statistics September 2026 · Next official release due 17 November 2026.

Monthly trend, England and Wales

Seasonally adjusted company insolvencies by procedure. September 2026 is the latest published month. Earlier months are as revised in the September 2026 release.

Insolvency Service, Company Insolvency Statistics September 2026 (accredited official statistics, published 20 October 2026). Compulsory liquidations from the Insolvency Service; other procedures from Companies House. Crown Copyright, reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. See the Insolvency Service collection.

By procedure, September 2026

Creditors voluntary liquidations dominate the picture, which is why getting the CVL route right matters most for directors of an insolvent company. Compulsory liquidations, the outcome when a court grants a creditor's winding-up petition, ran at 341 cases in September 2026, about 18% of the total and higher than both August 2026 and September 2025: a reminder that acting in the weeks before a petition hearing is what keeps a director in the CVL column rather than the compulsory one. Administrations fell to 102, 44% lower than August 2026. Administration numbers can swing sharply from month to month when a group of connected companies enters administration together, so a single month should not be read as a broad change in business rescue activity.

Insolvency Service, Company Insolvency Statistics September 2026 (accredited official statistics, published 20 October 2026). Compulsory liquidations from the Insolvency Service; other procedures from Companies House. Crown Copyright, reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Shares other than the CVL share are calculated by us from the published counts.

By industry

Construction records the most insolvencies of any sector, followed by wholesale and retail trade and then accommodation and food service. These figures cover the 12 months to September 2026. For most sectors the numbers were lower than in the previous 12 months.

Scotland and Northern Ireland

Scotland and Northern Ireland are reported separately because their insolvency law differs from England and Wales, and their figures are not seasonally adjusted. In September 2026 insolvencies were higher than a year earlier in both Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The long-run context

The insolvency rate of 49.9 per 10,000 companies in the 12 months to September 2026, 1 in 200, is well below the 2008-09 financial crisis peak of 113.1 per 10,000. The gap is not because failures are rare: it is largely because the effective company register has more than doubled in size since the last recession, so a similar number of insolvencies translates into a much lower rate. The 12-month rate is also down from 52.8 a year earlier. For the leading indicators that tend to move before the headline count, such as winding-up petitions and HMRC tax debt, see our data pages and the key statistics page.

Download the data

Every table on this page is free to download, with no sign-up: monthly.csv, procedures.csv, industry.csv and nations.csv as CSV, or all of it as latest.json. The CSV and API guide explains every column, how the files update after each release, and how to credit the source.