How many UK companies have negative net assets? (October 2026)
Key findings
- 18.8% of active UK companies with recent iXBRL accounts (about 672,000 of 3,575,087) report negative net assets, meaning total liabilities exceed total assets.
- Across all accounts filed, the share with negative net assets reached 18.7% for financial years ending in 2025, up from 15.2% for 2018; among companies still on the register it is 18.6%, the highest in our series since 2014.
- Real estate companies saw the sharpest rise: 17% of their accounts showed negative net assets for 2014 year ends, 25.4% for 2025.
- Hospitality has the highest share of any sector at 28.5%; among trading sectors health and social care has the lowest at 13.7%.
- Negative net assets is a weak predictor of failure on its own: of companies with negative net assets in their 2016 accounts, 41% are still active today, against 48.8% of companies with positive net assets.
The trend since 2014
| Financial year end | Accounts with net assets figure | Negative net assets | Net liabilities above £100k | Median net assets |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 1,630,966 | 18.9% | 1.8% | £756 |
| 2015 | 1,838,010 | 18.3% | 1.8% | £808 |
| 2016 | 2,120,854 | 18.3% | 1.8% | £795 |
| 2017 | 2,377,881 | 18.1% | 1.9% | £1,012 |
| 2018 | 2,588,591 | 15.2% | 1.8% | £1,915 |
| 2019 | 2,800,317 | 16.1% | 2% | £2,033 |
| 2020 | 3,025,334 | 16.2% | 2.1% | £2,217 |
| 2021 | 3,220,461 | 17% | 2.1% | £2,105 |
| 2022 | 3,167,414 | 17.3% | 2.1% | £2,002 |
| 2023 | 3,274,844 | 17.6% | 2.4% | £1,846 |
| 2024 | 3,618,257 | 18.2% | 2.5% | £2,020 |
| 2025 | 3,579,940 | 18.7% | 2.6% | £2,318 |
The gold line counts every iXBRL account we hold for each year, including companies that have since been dissolved, so it is free of survivorship bias. The black line covers only companies still on the register in 2026, which is what industry breakdowns below rely on, because the register no longer records the industry of dissolved companies. The dip for 2018 year ends appears in both series; we have not found a single cause and treat that year with caution. Coverage before 2014 is incomplete, so the table starts there.
Deeply negative balance sheets are rarer but growing: 2.6% of accounts for 2025 show net liabilities above £100,000, against 1.8% for 2014.
By industry
Latest accounts of active companies, SIC sections with more than 5,000 active companies.
| Industry | Active companies | Negative net assets | 2014 trend to 2025 (live companies) | Net current liabilities |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Accommodation and food service activities | 248,796 | 28.5% | 27.6% to 28.5% | 50.7% |
| Real estate activities | 606,940 | 25.7% | 17% to 25.4% | 56.8% |
| Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply | 16,516 | 23.4% | 22.9% to 22.3% | 37.4% |
| Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles | 653,899 | 22.1% | 21.3% to 22% | 36.2% |
| Arts, entertainment and recreation | 121,574 | 21.9% | 23.9% to 21.7% | 37.2% |
| Other service activities | 208,255 | 19.7% | 19.9% to 19.7% | 36.4% |
| Information and communication | 435,543 | 19.5% | 18.1% to 19.3% | 31.3% |
| Agriculture, forestry and fishing | 41,724 | 19% | 16.1% to 18.7% | 43.1% |
| Education | 104,984 | 19% | 19.3% to 18.9% | 31.7% |
| Manufacturing | 210,821 | 18.7% | 16.3% to 18.6% | 33.4% |
| Administrative and support service activities | 349,258 | 18.6% | 17.6% to 18.4% | 34% |
| Transportation and storage | 131,767 | 18.3% | 17.9% to 18.5% | 36.7% |
| Construction | 503,123 | 16.8% | 16.2% to 16.9% | 33.2% |
| Water supply, sewerage, waste management and remediation | 16,069 | 16.1% | 16.6% to 16.2% | 35.6% |
| Professional, scientific and technical activities | 626,454 | 14.7% | 13.6% to 14.6% | 26.8% |
| Financial and insurance activities | 218,846 | 14.4% | 13.7% to 14% | 35.9% |
| Mining and quarrying | 7,414 | 14.1% | 12.2% to 13.8% | 29.7% |
| Public administration and defence | 8,900 | 14.1% | 12% to 14.2% | 27.5% |
| Human health and social work activities | 213,169 | 13.7% | 13.5% to 13.7% | 26.7% |
| Activities of households as employers and producers for own use | 125,750 | 4.9% | 4.4% to 4.8% | 15.8% |
| All UK | 5,166,057 | 18.8% | 16.4% to 18.6% | 36.2% |
Hospitality runs on daily cash takings and supplier credit, so thin or negative balance sheets are common even in businesses that trade for years. Real estate is different: many letting and development companies are funded by mortgages and directors' loans, often hold property at cost rather than market value, and probably absorbed higher interest costs after 2022, which can push them into net liabilities on paper. Each sector page has the full benchmark set.
By company age
| Years since incorporation | Active companies with accounts | Negative net assets |
|---|---|---|
| Under 3 | 555,918 | 20.5% |
| 3 to 5 | 587,319 | 21.8% |
| 5 to 10 | 1,001,237 | 21.5% |
| 10 to 20 | 878,694 | 16.9% |
| Over 20 | 512,179 | 11.3% |
Young companies often start with losses funded by founders' loans, which sit as liabilities until the business turns a profit or the loan is converted to equity. Companies over 20 years old are about half as likely to show negative net assets as those under 10.
By size
| Employees in latest accounts | Companies | Negative net assets |
|---|---|---|
| None | 915,023 | 25.5% |
| 1 | 924,593 | 21.6% |
| 2 to 9 | 1,077,589 | 18.8% |
| 10 to 49 | 178,233 | 13.1% |
| 50 to 249 | 27,714 | 9.8% |
By accounts type: 24% of companies filing total exemption full accounts, 20% of micro-entities, 26.2% of small companies filing small accounts and 3.9% of dormant companies report negative net assets.
Does negative net assets predict failure?
Less than most people assume. We followed every company with accounts for a given year and checked whether it was still on the register on 1 October 2026.
| Accounts for year | Net assets | Companies | Still on register | Still active |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Positive or zero | 1,732,210 | 53.3% | 48.8% |
| 2016 | Negative | 388,644 | 47.1% | 41% |
| 2019 | Positive or zero | 2,349,247 | 65.8% | 58.9% |
| 2019 | Negative | 451,070 | 63.1% | 53.8% |
| 2021 | Positive or zero | 2,673,731 | 73.1% | 66.8% |
| 2021 | Negative | 546,730 | 71.5% | 60.3% |
Companies with negative net assets are a few percentage points more likely to disappear, not dramatically more. Many owner-managed companies carry a director's loan that the director will never call in, and the balance sheet looks insolvent while the business trades normally. That is why negative net assets should start a check, not end it: look at the trend over several years, overdue accounts, charges and cash. See what negative net assets means and how to check a UK company.
What this means and what it does not
Negative net assets means that, on the balance sheet date, liabilities exceeded assets at book value. It does not by itself mean the company is insolvent, cannot pay its debts or is trading wrongfully: assets may be worth more than their book value, liabilities may be owed to the directors themselves, and a parent company may support a subsidiary. For a supplier or lender it is a reason to ask for more information, check the balance sheet ratios and watch the company for change.
Methodology
- Source: our parse of 37 million iXBRL accounts filed at Companies House since 2008 (Accounts Data Product, Open Government Licence v3.0) and the Companies House register snapshot of 1 October 2026.
- Net assets: the net assets line, or total equity where net assets is not tagged. Values above £100bn are treated as extraction errors and excluded.
- Trend: one account per company per financial year (the latest version filed, so amended accounts replace originals), grouped by the year of the balance sheet date.
- Active companies: status "Active" on the register; latest accounts with a balance sheet date in 2024 or later.
- Industry: first SIC code on the register; the dormant placeholder 99999 is excluded from industry rows.
- Not covered: companies filing paper or PDF accounts, which include many large groups.
- Full details: methodology. The aggregates are also published as an open dataset on Hugging Face (devladpopov/uk-company-statistics).
How to cite: UK Company Data (2026). How many UK companies have negative net assets? Global Mindset Marketing Ltd. https://data.globalmindsetmarketing.co.uk/data/uk-companies-negative-net-assets
FAQ
How many UK companies have negative net assets?
about 672,000 active UK companies, 18.8% of those with recent machine-readable accounts, reported negative net assets in their latest accounts as of 1 October 2026. For financial years ending in 2025, 18.7% of all accounts filed showed net liabilities.
Which industries have the most companies with negative net assets?
Accommodation and food service activities (28.5%), real estate activities (25.7%) and electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply (23.4%) have the highest shares among sectors with more than 5,000 active companies.
Is a company with negative net assets insolvent?
Not necessarily. Negative net assets is a balance sheet measure at book value. Insolvency depends on whether the company can pay its debts as they fall due and on the true value of its assets. Many small companies show net liabilities because of loans from their own directors.
Are more UK companies in negative net assets than before?
Yes. The share of accounts with negative net assets rose from 15.2% for 2018 year ends to 18.7% for 2025, and in real estate from 17% in 2014 to 25.4% in 2025.
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