In Germany the number of registered corporate insolvencies rose in August 2026 compared with the same month a year earlier. The local courts recorded 2,067 applications for insolvency proceedings, 4.4 per cent more than in August 2025, the Federal Statistical Office said on 13 November 2026. However, the figures do not reflect the situation in August alone: several months can pass between an application and its inclusion in the statistics.
The number of cases also increased over a longer period. From January to August 2026, the courts recorded 17,252 applications for corporate insolvency proceedings. That was 6.6 per cent more than in the first eight months of the previous year. The increase in August was therefore smaller than the rise over the full eight-month period. However, this alone is not enough to conclude that there has been a lasting change in trend.
The highest insolvency rates were recorded in transport and storage. In the first eight months of the year, there were 97.6 applications for corporate insolvency proceedings per 10,000 companies in this sector. This was followed by hospitality at 80.1 and the construction industry at 71.9 cases. Across all sectors, the rate was 48.7 per 10,000 companies. The rate compares the number of cases with the number of companies in each sector, making it possible to compare sectors of different sizes.
For creditors, the amount of outstanding claims is also important, alongside the number of proceedings. The local courts put the value of claims in corporate insolvencies reported from January to August 2026 at around €25.9 billion. In the same period in 2025, the figure was around €37.2 billion. According to the Federal Statistical Office, the decline was due to more economically significant companies having filed for insolvency in 2025. Higher case numbers do not necessarily go hand in hand with higher claim amounts.
More private individuals were also affected by insolvency proceedings. In August 2026, 6,301 consumer insolvencies were reported, 2.8 per cent more than a year earlier. There were 52,344 cases from January to August, 1.2 per cent more than in the corresponding period a year earlier. Consumer and corporate insolvencies are reported separately and should not be treated as the same development.
The timing of recording is crucial to interpreting the figures: an application only appears in the statistics after the insolvency court has made an initial decision. According to the Federal Statistical Office, in many cases the application itself was filed nearly three months earlier. The figures published on 13 November therefore provide a detailed look at proceedings that have already begun, but not a real-time picture of new applications.
In addition, the insolvency statistics do not cover every business closure. A business that closes for other reasons or before facing acute payment difficulties does not appear as an insolvency case in the statistics. Conversely, the number of applications for proceedings alone does not indicate how many jobs will be lost or how much creditors will ultimately actually lose.
Editor: Daniel Mayer (Article created with AI assistance).