In January-March 2025, 56,826 new individual entrepreneurs were registered in Ukraine, which is about 20% more than in the previous quarter, when this figure was 47,347. At the same time, the number of closed FOPs increased even more significantly – from 71,975 in the fourth quarter of 2024 to 108,242 in the first quarter 2025, which indicates an increase of more than 50%, informs YouControl.Market.
Such dynamics are the result of “deferred demand” caused by a technical interruption in the work of the Unified State Register of Legal Entities. Due to its suspension, which lasted from the end of 2024 to January 8, 2025, both registration and liquidation of FOPs were suspended. After the resumption of the registry at the beginning of the year, there was a massive catch-up, which led to a record number of both openings and closings.
The study emphasizes that in all major sectors of the economy, the number of liquidations exceeded the number of new registrations. The worst balance was recorded in retail trade: 32,700 stores were closed during the quarter. FOPs, while only 14,500 were created, which is a net loss of almost 18,000 entrepreneurs. In the field of IT and the “other services” category, the losses amounted to about 8-9 thousand FOPs each.
“In general, even after adjusting for technical failures, the trend remains that the number of closed FOPs steadily exceeds the number of new ones, which means a net reduction in the number of small entrepreneurs in the country. Despite the increase in openings in the first quarter of 2025, this is not enough to compensate for the mass closing of businesses.” YouControl.Market says.
As a reminder, in 2024, almost 210,000 FOPs ceased operations in Ukraine — this is 32% more than in 2023, and is the highest level of closures over the past five years.
