UK Retail Sector Insolvency Statistics

There were 852 retail company insolvencies in England and Wales between January and June 2026, against 1,006 in the same six months of 2025, a fall of 15.3%. Wholesale, retail and motor trade as a whole fell 14.3% over the same months.

Retail, at 52% of that section, is falling slightly faster than the section around it. These are Company Debt calculations from Insolvency Service Table A1b data.

The rolling 12-month figure confirms the same direction at a gentler pace: 1,808 cases for the year to June 2026 against 1,893 for the year to June 2025, down 4.5%, against a 5.4% fall for the section overall.

Both measures now point the same way, after three years in which retail insolvencies only climbed.

Retail splits into nine sub-sectors with very different fortunes in 2026. Household equipment retail, covering furniture and homeware specialists, is the only one rising, up 5.3% year to date.

Every other sub-sector fell. Information and communication equipment retail fell hardest, down 57.7%, though from a small base of a few dozen cases a year. Market stalls fell 41.7%, also from a small base.

The two largest sub-sectors by volume, other specialised-goods retail (clothing, footwear, pharmacies and similar, the largest single trade) and non-store retail (mail order and online), both fell by a more moderate 10.0% and 12.3%.

Retail’s own 15.3% fall sits between the motor trade’s gentler 4.3% fall and wholesale’s steeper 17.9% fall, in a section that eased 14.3% overall. This looks like a section retreating broadly together, not one trade dragging the rest down.

Retail insolvencies rose steadily before the pandemic, from 957 in 2016 to 1,308 by 2019. 2020 and 2021 held below that level, 877 and 930, as government support and restricted winding-up petitions held the normal cycle back.

The rise from there was severe. 1,803 in 2022, then a series peak of 2,218 in 2023, a 23% jump in a single year, as energy costs, business rates and post-pandemic cost inflation landed on the sector at once.

2024 and 2025 both eased from that peak, to 1,921 and 1,962, and 2026’s opening months have continued the retreat. Five years on from the pandemic, retail remains 50% above its 2019 level, but the worst of the recent wave looks to be behind it.

In the retail cases we see, the trigger is almost always a lease or a stock-funding facility, not a single bad trading month. A shop can have a full till most days and still be insolvent once rent, rates and the National Living Wage are covered.

Multi-site retailers fail differently to single shops. One loss-making unit rarely brings a chain down on its own, but a lease renewal or a landlord refusing a rent-free period at the wrong moment can force the whole group’s hand.

Stock is the trap directors miss most often. Retail ties up cash in inventory that a service business never carries, and a supplier tightening credit terms during a weak season can turn a stock problem into a cash problem within weeks.

We would not start with footfall or online sales alone. We would look at the lease schedule against trading performance store by store, what credit terms suppliers are actually offering right now, and what is owed to HMRC.

A retailer with a sound core estate and a genuinely fixable cost or lease problem usually has more options than the numbers suggest, a CVA to shed the worst leases, a pre-pack sale of the trading business, or support accessed early, provided the conversation starts before a creditor forces the timing.

SIC division 47 covers retail trade except of motor vehicles and motorcycles: general stores, food and specialist retailers, household goods, and online and non-store retail. Motor vehicle and motorcycle retail (SIC division 45) and wholesale trade (SIC division 46) are recorded separately within the same section.

This is one of the largest trading divisions on this site, and it splits into nine very different sub-sectors, from supermarkets to online retailers, each with its own trajectory. The sub-sector table above is often where the real story sits, not the single headline figure.

These are company counts, not the number of shops, brands or jobs affected. A single insolvent company may operate one store or several hundred, and many independent retailers trade as sole traders rather than through a company, so this page does not capture the whole of high-street distress.

The figures are insolvency volumes, not a failure rate. They are not adjusted for the number of active retail businesses, so a falling count does not, on its own, prove that retail has become safer to trade in.

The SIC 47 figures come from Table A1b and are not seasonally adjusted. The latest month is provisional and can be revised.

None of the figures above decide whether a particular retail business is viable. What matters is narrower: how the lease schedule compares with store-by-store trading performance, what credit terms suppliers are actually offering, and what is genuinely owed to HMRC.

Plenty of retailers in difficulty are otherwise sound businesses carrying a small number of loss-making leases or a stock-funding gap, and both are usually fixable if addressed early.

If you are reading this with a rent quarter-day or a supplier payment coming and the cash is not there, the thing worth knowing is that the earlier you speak to someone, the more room there is to move: a lease renegotiated, an HMRC Time to Pay arrangement, or a rescue procedure such as a Company Voluntary Arrangement or administration.

Once a winding-up petition is advertised, the bank account is usually frozen within days, and at that point creditors’ voluntary liquidation may be the only route still open. If you want to talk it through first, our insolvency advice for directors is the place to start.