Almost 194 thousand new sole proprietorships were opened by Ukrainians in 8 months of 2024, according to the Unified State Register (USR). 60% of new businesses were started by women. During the same period, just over 120 thousand businesses were closed. More than a third of new businesses close in the first year of operation.
193,192 new sole proprietorships were registered since the beginning of the year. This is even more than before the outbreak of full-scale war, when 186,144 new cases were opened in the same period. After a significant decline at the beginning of the great invasion, the number of new registrations has stabilized and has remained at the same level for the second year in a row.
Most new businesses were opened by entrepreneurs in the capital – 26,303 or 13.6% of the total number of new businesses this year. New businesses are also being actively registered in Dnipropetrovs’k (18,025), Lviv (14,459), Kyiv (14,428), and Kharkiv (12,954) regions.
The most noticeable increase in the number of new fops over the year was in Zaporizhzhia region – by 11%, Kirovohrad region – by 10%, and Chernihiv region – by 9.6%. At the same time, business activity slowed down significantly in the frontline Luhansk (-14.7%) and Ivano-Frankivsk (-8%) regions. Despite the fact that Kharkiv region is among the regions with the largest number of new firms, the number of registrations in this region decreased by 6% compared to the previous year.
One third of new businesses are opened in the trade sector, and the IT sector attracts 7.6% of new entrepreneurs. The top three most popular areas for new business start-ups are personal services (7%). It is worth noting that the top has undergone some changes over the year: in 2023, cafes and restaurants were among the leaders, but this year they were replaced by information services.
The share of women among newly minted businessmen reached a record high of 60%. For comparison, in 2023, this figure was 55.6%, and in the first year of full-scale business, it was 47%.
Currently, the number of new cases is 1.6 times higher than the number of closed ones. Thus, 120,154 fops have been closed in Ukraine since the beginning of the year. Newly established businesses suffered the most: 24.5% of those that were opened last year closed, and 13.7% of those that opened this year. The median period of operation of the fops closed this year is 2 years and 7 months.
The largest number of fops closed in Kyiv – 13% (15,770), Kharkiv – 8% (10,097) and Dnipropetrovs’k – 8% (9,931) regions.
https://opendatabot.ua/analytics/foponomics-2024-9
