Quarterly Report — November 2025 through January 2026 | Published February 2026

The Numbers They Don’t Want You to See

Romania opened 2026 not with a fanfare of entrepreneurial optimism, but with a cold statistical verdict: more businesses are dying than being born. For the second consecutive month, the country’s business ecosystem recorded a deeply negative net growth figure, and the data from the final quarter of 2025 through January 2026 paints an increasingly disturbing picture of an economy that is quietly haemorrhaging its commercial base.

The headline registration figures may look robust on the surface — January 2026 recorded 11,075 new registrations , up 27.7% year-on-year — but behind that façade lies a far more alarming reality: January’s registrations were obliterated by 13,761 total business exits , producing a net loss of 2,686 entities from Romania’s commercial register . Romania’s business ecosystem ended January with a churn rate of 124.25% — meaning for every 100 businesses born, 124 were extinguished.

This is not a blip. This is a pattern.

A Quarter in Collapse: The Three-Month Death Spiral

The quarter that began in November 2025 and closed with January 2026 tells a story of rapid deterioration. November was the lone bright spot — 15,051 new registrations outpaced 12,535 exits , producing a fragile net positive of just 2,516 entities. But even this was a mirage: November’s health ratio of 1.2 was already trending sharply downward, a warning sign that went unheeded.

Then came December — and the bottom fell out. New registrations cratered to 11,632 , while exits surged to a staggering 15,924 , delivering a net destruction of 4,292 businesses in a single month . December’s churn rate hit 136.9% — the worst of the quarter. Dissolutions alone reached 5,573 , up nearly 8% from December 2024 .

January 2026 brought no relief. The churn rate remained at a suffocating 124.25%, suspensions jumped to 2,046 — a 19.9% spike year-on-year — and dissolutions exploded by 51.6% compared to January 2025 , reaching 5,403 . That is not a seasonal hiccup. That is a structural unravelling.

Compare this with the same quarter one year prior: In the November 2024–January 2025 window, the ecosystem was already under strain — but not like this. December 2024’s catastrophic churn rate of 197.29% had been attributed to year-end administrative purges. But the persistence of negative net growth into a second consecutive year — and the escalating dissolution figures — suggests something far more systemic is taking hold.

The PFA Surge: Desperation Dressed as Enterprise

The year-on-year registration growth looks impressive until you examine what kind of businesses are being registered. The data reveals a deeply troubling structural shift: Romania’s entrepreneurial pulse is increasingly being driven not by capital-intensive limited liability companies, but by sole traders — the most fragile, lowest-capital business form on the register.

In January 2026, PFA (sole trader) registrations surged by a jaw-dropping 92.1% year-on-year , reaching 4,455 . Meanwhile, SRL (limited liability company) registrations — the backbone of real business formation — grew by a comparatively anaemic 4.5%, adding just 270 more entities than January 2025 .

This pattern was visible throughout the quarter. In November 2025, PFA registrations surged 67.9% year-on-year . In December 2025, PFA growth hit a staggering 108.9% .

Economists and business analysts have long warned that a PFA boom, uncoupled from SRL growth, often signals that workers displaced from formal employment are registering as sole traders out of necessity — not opportunity. When the vast majority of new “businesses” are one-person micro-entities with no capital base, no employees, and minimal regulatory protections, the registration surge is less a sign of entrepreneurial vitality and more an indictment of a labour market forcing individuals into precarious self-employment.

The 12-Month Moving Average Tells the Real Story

Peel away the year-on-year percentage theatre and the structural decay becomes undeniable. Romania’s 12-month moving average of business registrations now stands at just 12,990 entities per month — and January 2026’s actual figure of 11,075 fell 14.7% below that benchmark. The country is consistently registering fewer businesses than its own recent historical trend would predict.

The moving average has been climbing — from 12,486 in November 2025 to 12,790 in December to 12,990 in January 2026 — but this is being driven upward by the exceptionally high months of mid-2025, not by current performance. The trend is masking a real-time deceleration. As those strong months age out of the rolling window, the average will inevitably fall — and the gap between expectation and reality will widen.

Industry by Industry: Nowhere to Hide

January 2026’s industry data conceals as much as it reveals. Transport & Storage surged 45.3% year-on-year to 2,045 registrations — but this sector is overwhelmingly composed of PFA sole traders registering as delivery couriers and ride-share drivers, the most precarious form of gig-economy participation. When a transport company closes, it erases dozens of jobs. When a PFA courier deregisters, it barely registers as a statistic — yet 2,046 suspensions in January alone suggest many of these new registrations will be short-lived.

Manufacturing surged 94.8% year-on-year in January 2026 , from 345 to 672 registrations . This sounds bullish — until you note that Manufacturing fell dramatically through the quarter, from 1,604 in November 2025 to 1,018 in December, to 672 in January. The sector is contracting within the quarter even as its year-on-year comparisons flatter the headlines.

Healthcare & Social Assistance was one of the only sectors to actually decline year-on-year in January 2026, dropping 12.3% . In a country with chronic healthcare workforce shortages, falling new medical business formation is not merely an economic signal — it is a public health warning.

Regional Concentration: The Capital Absorbs While the Provinces Wither

The regional data for January 2026 reveals an economy that is becoming dangerously concentrated. Bucharest alone recorded 2,706 new registrations , a 54.8% year-on-year surge . The capital and its satellite county of Ilfov — up 53% to 696 registrations — between them accounted for over 30% of all new business formations in the country.

Meanwhile, Galați recorded the highest growth rate of any county — a seemingly dazzling 119.3% increase — yet its absolute volume of just 261 registrations reflects how thin the baseline was. Statistical noise masquerading as a regional renaissance.

The broader picture is one of capital-centric consolidation. Businesses, talent, and capital are gravitating to Bucharest and Cluj while secondary cities stagnate. The January 2026 data shows Iași — Romania’s second-largest city by population — growing a comparatively meagre 14.8% , well below the national average.

The Verdict: Growth Is an Illusion, Decay Is the Reality

The quarterly picture from November 2025 through January 2026 is one that Romanian authorities will be reluctant to publicise in full. Yes, year-on-year registration figures are up across all three months — by 23.1%, 45.9%, and 27.7% respectively . These are the numbers that will appear in press releases.

What will not appear in those press releases:

• Two of the three months in this quarter ended with more businesses dying than being born — December’s net loss of 4,292 businesses and January’s net loss of 2,686 represent a combined destruction of nearly 7,000 net business entities in just 60 days.
• Dissolutions in January 2026 surged 51.6% above January 2025 levels , reaching 5,403 — a figure that dwarfs any comparable recent period.
• The registration growth driving the headline numbers is overwhelmingly composed of sole traders, the most fragile and transient business form, whose lifecycle is measured in months rather than years.
• The current registration volume of 11,075 per month sits 14.7% below Romania’s own 12-month moving average of 12,990 , meaning the country is underperforming its own recent baseline.

Romania’s business register is running on borrowed time. The registrations are rising — but they are being outrun by closures, dissolutions, and suspensions at a pace that, if sustained, will leave the country’s commercial ecosystem meaningfully smaller by the time 2026 is out. The question analysts must now ask is not “how many businesses were born?” but “how many will still be alive by spring?”

Data sourced from Romania’s National Trade Register Office (ONRC) via analytical tools covering the period November 2025 – January 2026. All comparisons against the prior-year equivalent period (November 2024 – January 2025).