UK Sports Club and Facility Insolvency Statistics

There were 96 sports club and facility insolvencies between January and June 2026, against 90 in the same six months of 2025, a rise of 6.7%. Arts, entertainment and recreation as a whole rose a slower 2.3%, from 213 to 218.

Sports facilities, at 42% of the section, are now rising noticeably faster than the section around them. These are Company Debt calculations from Insolvency Service Table A1b data.

The rolling 12-month figure shows the same gap: 201 cases for the year to June 2026 against 190 for the year to June 2025, up 5.8%, against a 7.6% rise for the section overall.

Two flat years, 195 in both 2024 and 2025, have given way to a modest but real uptick in 2026.

The trades sharing this section are moving in different directions this year. Creative, arts and entertainment activities rose 17.2% year to date. Amusement and recreation, covering attractions such as theme parks and arcades, fell 16.7%.

Libraries, archives and museums, and gambling and betting, are both too small, a handful of cases a year, for the percentage change to mean very much on their own.

Sports facilities, up 6.7% year to date, are now rising faster than the section as a whole, which rose 2.3%. At 42% of the section’s total, that puts sports ahead of, not just in line with, the wider trend.

It still makes this trade useful context for reading the section-level figure elsewhere on this site, even though sports facilities are currently moving a little faster than the section around them.

Sports club and facility insolvencies rose steadily before the pandemic, from 94 in 2016 to 151 by 2019. 2020 brought a modest fall to 135, smaller than the drop seen in many other trades, reflecting how quickly gyms and sports facilities were forced to close and then reopen repeatedly through 2020 and 2021 rather than trading through the period at a reduced level.

The rise from there was sharp. 153 in 2021, then 231 in 2022, a 51% jump in a single year, and a further rise to 236 in 2023, the series peak. That coincided with the first full year of post-lockdown energy price rises landing on some of the most energy-intensive premises in the economy.

2024 and 2025 both held at exactly 195, a genuine plateau rather than a recovery, and 2026 has opened slightly above that level. Five years on from the pandemic, the sector has not returned anywhere near its 2019 footing.

In the sports and leisure cases we see, the trigger is almost always a fixed cost that has moved a long way in a short time, an energy contract renewing at several times its previous rate, or a council subsidy or lease that has been cut or not renewed, rather than a sudden drop in members.

Membership income is sticky in ways that can mislead a director. People do not cancel a gym or club membership as quickly as spending falls elsewhere, so the revenue line can look steady for months while the cost base underneath it has already moved decisively against the business.

VAT and PAYE arrears tend to build during exactly that gap, because a facility usually keeps running, keeps paying staff and keeps taking memberships, right up until a renewal date or a contract review forces the true cost position into the open.

We would not start with membership numbers. We would look at when the next energy contract renews and on what terms, whether any council subsidy or facility-management contract is secure beyond the current year, how labour costs compare with income per member, and what is owed to HMRC.

A club or facility with a loyal membership base and a genuinely fixable cost problem usually has more options than the numbers suggest, renegotiating a contract, restructuring premises costs, or bringing in support before a lease or an energy bill forces the timing instead.

SIC group 931 covers companies whose recorded primary business is sports activities: the operation of sports facilities and leisure centres, sports clubs, fitness facilities such as gyms, and other sports activities. It sits within arts, entertainment and recreation, alongside amusement and recreation activities and creative, arts and entertainment activities, which are recorded separately.

This is the largest single trade in its section, at 42% of arts, entertainment and recreation insolvencies, so its own trajectory does a good deal to shape the section total, though less completely than in some other pages in this series.

These are company counts, not the number of gyms, clubs, facilities or members affected. A single insolvent company may operate one site or several.

The figures are insolvency volumes, not a failure rate. They are not adjusted for the number of active sports and leisure operators, so the count cannot show whether failure has become more or less likely for a given operator.

The SIC 931 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 club or facility is viable. What matters is narrower: what the next energy renewal will cost, whether council or contract funding is secure, and what is genuinely owed to HMRC.

Plenty of clubs and facilities in difficulty are otherwise sound operations carrying an energy-cost shock or a funding gap left by a council decision, and both are usually fixable if addressed early.

If you are reading this with an energy bill or a wage run 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: supplier or lender terms 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.