June’s registration data reveals an economy dangerously dependent on logistics and retail, while manufacturing and IT — the sectors that were supposed to power the future — barely register.

Romania’s business registration machine is running on fumes, and the fumes smell like diesel. The 11,277 new company registrations recorded in June represent the third consecutive month the country has failed to crack the 12,000 barrier, a threshold it routinely cleared as recently as March, when 14,438 new businesses were founded. That is a 22% collapse in just three months. And the 12-month moving average has now slipped to 13,248, its lowest inflection point in the rolling cycle.

The headline number understates the rot. June is historically the fifth-strongest month of the year, with a 10-year mean of 12,119 registrations. This June produced 11,277 — 7% below the seasonal average, and down 4.15% compared to June 2025. A historically mid-range month is suddenly an outlier on the weak side, and that is not seasonal variation; that is structural decay.

The Transport Mirage

Let us examine the sector that this newspaper has warned about for months. Transport şi depozitare posted 2,061 new registrations in June, grabbing the top spot again by a comfortable 415 registrations over retail. Optimists will point to the 17.4% bounce from May’s crash-low of 1,755 and argue the sector has stabilised.

It has not. June’s 2,061 is still 14.8% below March’s peak of 2,419. The bounce from May — a month in which transport was actually dethroned from the number-one sector slot by retail for the first time in recent memory — is barely a dead cat bounce; it is a half-hearted recovery that still leaves the sector lower than it was in April (1,933) and well below its year-ago June 2025 level, a year-on-year decline of 11.85%.

More troubling: the transport sector is now devouring a wildly disproportionate share of Romania’s entrepreneurial energy. Transport alone accounted for 18.3% of all June registrations. Add retail (Comerţ cu ridicata şi cu amănuntul) at 14.6% and the two sectors together claim nearly a third of every new business formed in Romania. That is not diversification; it is a single-industry town on four wheels.

Where Is Manufacturing? Where Is IT?

The data answers that question with brutal clarity: industrial production — the manufacturing sector that policy-makers insist is the future of the Romanian economy — generated just 462 registrations in June. That is 4.1% of total registrations. It places manufacturing in ninth position, behind “hotels and restaurants” (518) and “other service activities” (879), and barely ahead of “entertainment and recreation” (368). A country that wants to be the next European manufacturing hub is producing fewer new manufacturing companies than it does takeaway food outlets.

The story in IT and communications is marginally better but still alarming. The 926 new registrations in Informaţii şi comunicaţii represent an 8.2% share of the market — respectably in fifth place, and indeed the sector grew 15.32% year-on-year. But this is a sector whose growth rates routinely topped 30-40% in previous years. Fifteen percent is a deceleration. And at 926 registrations from a base of 11,277 total, IT accounts for fewer new businesses than professional services (1,197) or construction (1,132). For a sector the government promotes as the engine of Romania’s digital future, it is running like a lawnmower.

The Churn Crisis Beneath the Surface

The truly terrifying number, however, is not the registration figure at all. It is the exit count. In June, 13,025 businesses were suspended, dissolved or deregistered. That is more than the 11,277 that entered. The churn rate — exits as a percentage of registrations — stands at 115.5%. For every 10 new companies that open their doors, 11-and-a-half are closing theirs.

The net result: Romania lost 1,748 businesses in June alone. The health ratio — registrations divided by exits — is a sickly 0.87. Anything below 1.0 means the business stock is shrinking, and it has been below that threshold for 7 consecutive months. Since December 2025, Romania has lost a cumulative 15,085 businesses on net. That is the equivalent of wiping out an entire medium-sized county’s business register every six weeks.

The Sectors Nobody Enters

The “negative space” of this month’s data is a gallery of economic failure. Healthcare and social assistance managed just 152 registrations — 1.3% of the total, and a catastrophic 40.86% decline year-on-year. A country with a chronic doctor shortage and an ageing population is producing fewer new healthcare businesses than it did last year, which itself was not a strong year. The private healthcare market, hailed as a growth story for a decade, appears to have hit a wall.

Financial intermediation and insurance — 233 registrations — posted explosive 60.69% year-on-year growth, but from a laughably small base. At 233 registrations, the entire financial sector of the Romanian economy produces fewer new businesses than the city of Braşov produces in total registrations in an average month.

Education — Învăţământ — generated 363 registrations, which is up 6.14% year-on-year but still represents barely 3% of the market. Real estate transactions: 339, down 1.74%.

The Regional Picture: Bucharest Alone Cannot Carry the Country

Some 2,667 registrations came from Bucharest alone — 23.7% of the national total. Ilfov, the ring county, added 844 with a strong 24.12% year-on-year growth rate, suggesting that businesses are fleeing the capital’s costs and landing just outside the city limits. The Bucharest-Ilfov axis alone accounts for nearly a third of all new companies in Romania.

Beyond the capital belt, the picture is bleak. Cluj-Napoca’s vaunted tech hub generated just 564 registrations total. Timiş, another supposed engine of western Romanian entrepreneurship: 522. The top 10 counties by volume — mostly the usual urban suspects — collectively produced 6,683 registrations, meaning the remaining 31 counties split just 4,594. Economic activity in Romania is increasingly a Bucharest story with a few provincial footnotes.

The Verdict

The Romanian business registration system is producing the wrong kinds of companies in the wrong places at the wrong time. An economy that generates 2,061 transport companies and only 462 manufacturing firms, an economy where IT and finance are dwarfed by retail and logistics, an economy where healthcare registrations are collapsing by 40.86% year-on-year — this is not an economy building for the future. It is an economy doubling down on its lowest-value sectors while the higher-value industries that could sustain growth in a European context wither from neglect.

The 7-month net destruction streak, with 15,085 businesses lost on aggregate since December, is not a seasonal fluctuation. It is not a statistical blip. It is the sound of an economy that has been running on transport fuel for too long, and the tank is running dry.

June’s modest bounce in transport registrations is not a recovery. It is a last gasp before the engine seizes entirely.