In 2025, registrations of market enterprises were 3,350, with a total of 2,916 new registrations of private limited companies during the year. The most of new registrations were in Construction with a total of 527, which was a 2% decrease from the previous year. Overall, the new registration of market enterprises decreased by 1% from 2024.
There were 965 market enterprises made insolvent in 2025, which is a 13% increase from 2024 when they were 851. Thereof, 371 were for market enterprises that were active in 2024, i.e. they either had registered employees according to the official PAYE tax registry or turnover according to VAT reports. This is a 9% increase from 2024.
There were 2,392 employees in 371 market enterprises that were active in 2024 and made insolvent in 2025. There was 22% increase in prior employment of insolvent enterprises in comparison with 2024. Mostly, this increase could be explained by prior employment in Tourism with a total of 1,014 or 59% increase from the previous year. The second highest was in Construction with a total of 847.
In conjunction with this publication, a web table for registered enterprises and organisations by legal form and economic activity has been updated. It is worth emphasizing that the number of registered enterprises and organisations is not the equivalent to the number of active market enterprises.
About the data
The data on new registrations and insolvencies is collected according to the ISAT2008 industry classification system for business sections and special aggregates defined by Statistics Iceland. The number of insolvencies for the latest month are temporary estimates and are subject to change with increased information on insolvency registrations from judicial authorities.