How much cash do UK small companies hold? (October 2026)
Key findings
- The median UK company held £10,127 in cash at its latest balance sheet date, and one in four held less than £613.
- Only 35.3% of UK companies held enough cash to cover all of their creditors due within one year.
- Manufacturing companies had a median cash balance of £28,863, more than four times the £6,266 of real estate companies.
- 20.3% of companies held £100,000 or more in cash, ranging from 13.6% in real estate to 33.4% in manufacturing among the main industry sections.
- The median cash balance in UK company accounts rose to £12,894 for financial years ending in 2021, 74% above 2019, then fell back to £8,919 for 2025.
Key figures
Active companies, latest iXBRL accounts with a balance sheet date of 1 January 2024 or later.
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Active companies on the register | 5,166,057 |
| Active companies with machine-readable financial figures | 69.2% |
| Cash, 25th percentile | £613 |
| Cash, median | £10,127 |
| Cash, 75th percentile | £67,541 |
| Companies holding £100,000 or more | 20.3% |
| Cash at least equal to creditors due within one year | 35.3% |
| Median cash ratio (cash / creditors due within one year) | 0.50 |
| Median creditors due within one year | £13,788 |
| Median current ratio | 1.19 |
These are overwhelmingly small companies: the median company in the data reports one employee, and many large groups file PDF accounts that are not machine-readable.
Cash by industry
Production and utility businesses hold the most cash, property and personal services the least.
| SIC section | 25th percentile | Median | 75th percentile | £100k or more |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| E Water supply and waste | £1,544 | £29,317 | £182,528 | 33.2% |
| C Manufacturing | £2,012 | £28,863 | £184,375 | 33.4% |
| A Agriculture, forestry and fishing | £2,601 | £28,092 | £165,922 | 31.8% |
| B Mining and quarrying | £1,420 | £26,359 | £167,031 | 32.5% |
| D Energy supply | £977 | £25,481 | £155,131 | 30.9% |
| Q Health and social work | £1,578 | £18,875 | £96,120 | 24.4% |
| F Construction | £1,329 | £13,249 | £76,221 | 21.7% |
| N Administrative and support | £792 | £12,586 | £82,381 | 22.6% |
| M Professional, scientific, technical | £669 | £12,464 | £67,648 | 19.8% |
| R Arts and recreation | £1,176 | £12,368 | £67,120 | 20.1% |
| G Wholesale and retail | £734 | £12,150 | £87,867 | 23.4% |
| J Information and communication | £480 | £11,824 | £75,429 | 21.4% |
| I Accommodation and food | £1,246 | £10,334 | £51,878 | 16.2% |
| K Financial and insurance | £135 | £10,000 | £106,169 | 25.8% |
| P Education | £636 | £8,274 | £51,669 | 17.4% |
| H Transport and storage | £694 | £7,511 | £56,506 | 19.3% |
| S Other services | £644 | £6,741 | £39,963 | 14.9% |
| L Real estate | £713 | £6,266 | £36,007 | 13.6% |
| O Public administration | £223 | £5,890 | £39,814 | 15.3% |
The spread inside each section is far wider than the gap between sections: in every section a quarter of companies hold less than £2,700, while the top quarter holds more than £36,000. Section T (mostly residents' property management companies) has a median of £761 and is left out of the table; section U has too few companies to compare.
Can cash pay the bills due within a year?
More cash does not mean more liquidity: what counts is cash against what is owed within 12 months.
| SIC section | Cash covers creditors due within one year | Median cash ratio | Median creditors due within one year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q Health and social work | 48.5% | 0.95 | £8,594 |
| P Education | 48.3% | 0.97 | £5,911 |
| M Professional, scientific, technical | 44.4% | 0.83 | £10,676 |
| R Arts and recreation | 42.6% | 0.76 | £9,435 |
| J Information and communication | 41.7% | 0.72 | £9,680 |
| H Transport and storage | 38.5% | 0.60 | £7,578 |
| F Construction | 32.2% | 0.47 | £19,380 |
| C Manufacturing | 30.8% | 0.45 | £23,268 |
| A Agriculture, forestry and fishing | 30.6% | 0.37 | £39,284 |
| G Wholesale and retail | 27.4% | 0.35 | £16,817 |
| I Accommodation and food | 26.2% | 0.35 | £21,465 |
| L Real estate | 25.6% | 0.13 | £43,447 |
Manufacturers hold more cash than consultants but owe more too, so fewer of them could pay all short-term creditors from cash. Real estate has the lowest cash ratio of any section; creditors due within one year in a property company can include loans from directors or connected companies that are not pressed for payment, so a low ratio there is less alarming than in a trading business. The real estate, manufacturing and health and social work pages have the full benchmarks, and all sections are listed under industries.
Highest and lowest cash by industry division
Among two-digit SIC divisions with more than 20,000 active companies, metalworking and care homes stand out at the top.
| Highest median cash | Active companies | Median cash |
|---|---|---|
| 25 Fabricated metal products | 20,088 | £63,192 |
| 87 Residential care | 27,716 | £34,551 |
| 32 Other manufacturing | 27,336 | £30,304 |
| 66 Auxiliary financial services | 23,576 | £26,853 |
| 42 Civil engineering | 25,457 | £25,177 |
| Lowest median cash | Active companies | Median cash |
|---|---|---|
| 96 Other personal services | 182,013 | £6,204 |
| 68 Real estate | 606,940 | £6,266 |
| 49 Land transport | 88,547 | £6,287 |
| 58 Publishing | 46,588 | £6,607 |
| 81 Services to buildings and landscaping | 64,294 | £6,976 |
Division 98 (mainly residents' management companies, median £745) is excluded.
Cash over time: the pandemic bulge
Median cash rose sharply in accounts for 2020 and 2021 and has drifted down since.
| Financial year end | Accounts analysed | Median cash | 75th percentile cash |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 2,120,854 | £5,990 | £29,675 |
| 2018 | 2,588,591 | £6,972 | £41,787 |
| 2019 | 2,800,317 | £7,424 | £45,325 |
| 2020 | 3,025,334 | £11,140 | £60,299 |
| 2021 | 3,220,461 | £12,894 | £70,384 |
| 2022 | 3,167,414 | £10,771 | £67,616 |
| 2023 | 3,274,844 | £9,168 | £63,401 |
| 2024 | 3,618,257 | £9,041 | £62,021 |
| 2025 | 3,579,940 | £8,919 | £61,585 |
This series covers all companies with accounts for each year, including those dissolved since, so it differs slightly from the £10,127 for today's active companies. Values are in cash terms and not adjusted for inflation.
One plausible contributor is government-backed pandemic lending. The Bounce Back Loan Scheme let small businesses borrow from £2,000 up to 25% of turnover, capped at £50,000, with a 100% government guarantee, and closed to new applications on 31 March 2021 (GOV.UK). Final figures show 1,560,309 Bounce Back Loans worth £47.36 billion and 109,877 Coronavirus Business Interruption Loans worth £26.39 billion (GOV.UK, July 2021). Balance sheets do not tell us whether a given company's cash came from such a loan, so we cannot measure the link directly; lower spending during lockdowns may also have played a part.
Why it matters
Cash is the asset a creditor actually gets paid from. A company can show healthy net assets and still struggle to pay you if its value sits in stock, property or unpaid invoices. When cash and other current assets fall short of creditors due within one year, the balance sheet shows net current liabilities.
Compare any company with its industry using the balance sheet ratio calculator, which uses the same medians as this page. For a wider view of balance sheet weakness, see our study of companies with negative net assets. To see a company's cash history across several years, search it on our company search.
Methodology
Source: our analysis of the Companies House BasicCompanyData register of 1 October 2026 and about 37 million iXBRL accounts filed from 2008 to 2026, parsed by us. Industry figures use active companies only, the latest accounts with a balance sheet date of 1 January 2024 or later, and the first SIC code (99999 excluded). Cash is "cash at bank and in hand" as filed. Many micro-entity balance sheets do not show cash separately, so cash statistics rest on fewer companies than total current assets. Percentiles are of companies that report the figure. Accounts filed on paper or as PDF are excluded. Coverage for 2010 to 2013 is incomplete, so the yearly table starts at 2016. Values above £100bn are treated as parsing errors and excluded. Full details: methodology.
How to cite: UK Company Data (2026). How much cash do UK small companies hold? Global Mindset Marketing Ltd. https://data.globalmindsetmarketing.co.uk/data/small-company-cash-by-sector
FAQ
How much cash does a typical UK small company have?
The median active UK company filing machine-readable accounts held £10,127 in cash at its latest balance sheet date. A quarter held less than £613 and a quarter held more than £67,541. These are mostly very small companies: the median reports one employee.
Which industries hold the most cash?
Water and waste (median £29,317), manufacturing (£28,863) and agriculture (£28,092) hold the most. Real estate (£6,266), other services (£6,741) and transport (£7,511) hold the least among trading sectors. Within manufacturing, fabricated metal products has a median of £63,192.
What is a good cash ratio for a small company?
There is no single target. The cash ratio divides cash by creditors due within one year, and the UK median is 0.50, meaning a typical company holds 50p in cash for every £1 due within a year. Only 35.3% of companies have a ratio of 1 or more. Compare with the industry median rather than a fixed rule.
Why did small company cash balances rise in 2020 and 2021?
Median cash went from £7,424 for 2019 year ends to £12,894 for 2021. Government-backed loans such as Bounce Back Loans, which closed to new applications on 31 March 2021, are a plausible contributor, along with lower spending during lockdowns. The accounts do not show where the cash came from, so this cannot be proved from balance sheets alone.
Check any UK company in seconds. Register details and the latest balance sheet figures for 5.6 million companies, free. Full financial history since 2008 as a one-off pack or through the API.
Search companies