economic situation
Insolvencies will rise sharply in 2024 – “clear warning signal”
In the economic crisis, more and more companies are filing for bankruptcy. The number also rises sharply at the end of the year. Experts do not expect anything good for 2025.
Amid the economic downturn, the number of company bankruptcies in Germany continues to rise sharply. For December, the Federal Statistical Office recorded 13.8 percent more registered insolvency proceedings than in the same period last year. In 2024 as a whole, there is an increase of 16.8 percent compared to the previous year.
The procedures are only included in the statistics after the insolvency court’s first decision, as the authority emphasizes. The actual date of the insolvency application is often almost three months beforehand.
Increase by a good third in October
In October, for which final data is available, the numbers shot up: the district courts reported 2,012 filed company insolvencies – 35.9 percent more than a year earlier. The creditors’ claims were around 3.8 billion euros, more than twice as much as in the previous year (1.6 billion euros).
DIHK chief analyst Volker Treier spoke of a “clear warning signal”. “Corporate bankruptcies reach their highest October level in ten years.”
Based on 10,000 companies, there were 5.9 company insolvencies in October, according to the statisticians, most of them in the transport and warehousing, construction and hospitality sectors. Consumer bankruptcies rose by 10.8 percent to 6,237 cases.
The wave of insolvencies is likely to increase in 2025
The credit agency Creditreform expects 22,400 corporate bankruptcies in Germany last year. That would be the highest level since 2015. In the new year, the numbers could reach the peak of the crisis year of 2009 with more than 32,000 cases.
The list of problems for companies is long: expensive energy, extensive bureaucracy, political uncertainty, and consumer reluctance to spend. In addition, exceptional rules with which the state tried to prevent a wave of bankruptcies in the corona pandemic have expired.
Federal Statistical Office: Time series of insolvencies
dpa
Source: Stern
