Slight increase in bankruptcies; Upward trend continues

Corrected for court hearing days, there were seven more bankruptcies in November than in October, Statistics Netherlands reported on Tuesday. That is an increase of 2 percent. The number of bankruptcies in the Netherlands has been trending upward for over a year.

Not corrected for hearing days, 287 companies and institutions, including sole proprietorships, were declared bankrupt in November. Trade had the largest number of bankruptcies at 56, 11 percent less than in October. Trade is one of the largest industries in the Netherlands. Relatively speaking, the most bankruptcies happened in the transport and storage sector last month.

The number of declared bankruptcies peaked at 911 in May 2013, after the credit crisis. After that, the number decreased steadily until August 2017. Then, the number of bankruptcies remained virtually unchanged until mid-2020.

During the coronavirus pandemic, thanks to government support, fewer and fewer businesses went bankrupt. The number reached a record low of 109 in August 2021. Since May 2022, the number of bankruptcies has continuously been higher than in the same month a year earlier.

In the first 11 months of 2023, the courts declared approximately 56 percent more companies bankrupt than in the same period of 2022.