June 2026 delivered 11,277 new company registrations in Romania, a 9.25% drop from May’s 12,427 and 4.15% below June 2025. On the surface, this looks like a slide. But the seasonal pattern tells a different story: June ranks fifth among calendar months with a long-term mean of 12,119 registrations, and this year’s figure of 11,277 sits within normal range of that baseline. The May-to-June dip is a recurring seasonal cooling, not fresh evidence of contraction.

That said, the headline stability masks a deeper compositional churn that has now been running for over a year — and the data shows it is stabilising rather than accelerating.

The SRL-PFA Substitution Is Mature, Not Acute

The long-running migration away from limited-liability SRLs toward sole-trader PFAs continued in June — but the pace is no longer accelerating. SRLs accounted for 6,233 registrations, down 18.81% year-on-year from 7,677. PFAs, meanwhile, rose to 4,535 — a 23.37% YoY increase from 3,676.

The share breakdown tells the story more calmly than the percentage swings: SRLs represented 55.3% of June registrations and PFAs 40.2%. A year ago, those shares were 65.3% and 31.2%, respectively. The shift is real and ongoing, but it has roughly settled into a new equilibrium. The SRL share has been in the mid-50s for several months, and the PFA share in the high 30s to low 40s — a pattern that now looks like a structural rebalancing rather than a panicked flight.

Smaller entity types also posted gains: Individual Enterprises (II) reached 435 registrations, up 18.53% YoY, while Family Enterprises (IF) jumped 80.95% to 38.

Exits Still Outpace Registrations — But the Gap Is Narrowing

June recorded 13,025 total business exits (suspensions, dissolutions, and deregistrations combined) against 11,277 new entries, yielding a churn rate of 115.5% — meaning for every 100 new companies, roughly 116 left the register. The net growth for the month was -1,748.

This marks the seventh consecutive month of negative net growth, a streak that began in December 2025. The cumulative net loss across these seven months stands at -15,085. That is a meaningful contraction by any measure.

However, the trend line is pointing in a less alarming direction than it was earlier in the streak. The worst month was December 2025, with a net loss of -4,292. Each of the last three months — April (-3,018), May (-2,051), and June (-1,748) — has been shallower than the one before. The net growth trend metric from the ecosystem health data confirms this: the month-over-month direction improved by +303 points between May and June.

The health ratio — registrations divided by total exits — stood at 0.87 in June, up from 0.86 the prior month, a marginal improvement of +0.01. That is still below the 1.0 breakeven threshold, but the direction is stabilising, not deteriorating.

Deregistrations Drive Exits; Dissolutions Flat

The composition of exits is also shifting. Deregistrations — the final removal of companies from the register — reached 7,145 in June, up 9.17% from 6,545 a year earlier. This category accounts for the bulk of the exit volume and is the main component driving the negative net growth.

Dissolutions, by contrast, were nearly flat year-on-year at 4,394 vs. 4,391 — essentially unchanged with a change of 0.07%. Suspensions fell 10.75% to 1,486 from 1,665, a welcome if modest sign that businesses are less frequently pausing operations than a year ago.

The picture that emerges is of a register that is “cleaning house” — removing inactive companies at a faster rate — rather than one seeing a fresh wave of active businesses collapsing. That is not the same thing as a healthy ecosystem, but it is a different dynamic from a distress-driven contraction.

Sectors: Tech and Construction Grow, Transport and Retail Shrink

Among industries, the sectoral picture is mixed but largely consistent with the theme of structural adjustment rather than crisis.

Transport and storage remained the top sector by volume with 2,061 registrations, but that was down 11.85% year-on-year from 2,338. Retail and wholesale trade posted 1,646 registrations, a 13.28% drop from 1,898. These two sectors alone accounted for nearly a third of all new registrations in June, so their deceleration is a significant drag on the overall figure.

On the other side of the ledger, several sectors posted solid growth:

• Information and communications rose 15.32% YoY to 926 registrations
• Professional, scientific, and technical activities grew 7.16% to 1,197
• Construction rose 4.04% to 1,132
• Agriculture, forestry, and fishing jumped 43.02% to 256
• Financial intermediation and insurance surged 60.69% to 233

The agriculture and finance numbers are from a low base, but the growth in IT, professional services, and construction points to a quiet rebalancing toward higher-value sectors — consistent with the “flexibility” interpretation of the PFA shift rather than the “distress” one.

Regional Spotlight: Ilfov Leads Growth

Bucharest dominated absolute volume with 2,667 registrations, followed by Ilfov (844), Cluj (564), and Timiș (522). But the fastest growth came from Ilfov, up 24.12% year-on-year, Iași (up 12.27%), and several smaller counties: Neamț surged 28.32%, Călărași rose 24.21%, and Giurgiu gained 15.31%.

The Ilfov-Bucharest metropolitan dynamic remains the country’s primary engine, but the broader spread of growth into medium-sized counties suggests entrepreneurial activity is not solely a big-city phenomenon.

Conclusion: Stability as a Finding

If June’s data proves anything, it is that the Romanian business register is not in freefall — it is in a protracted but slowly narrowing period of net-negative churn, with the composition of registrations continuing to shift from SRL-heavy toward PFA-heavy in what increasingly looks like a durable structural transition.

The 12-month moving average has declined to 13,248 from 13,288 the prior month — a marginal erosion that confirms the long-term trend is gradually downward. But the rate of decline in the moving average has slowed considerably from earlier in the streak. The 12-month average bottomed out in the spring and is now essentially flat.

The most notable finding of June 2026 may be that nothing dramatically worsened. The SRL-to-PFA substitution held steady. The net loss narrowed. The seasonal dip was within historical norms. The sectors that are growing (IT, construction, professional services) are not distressed sectors. The sectors that are shrinking (transport, retail) are undergoing normalisation after a post-pandemic boom.

For an editorial line that has tracked net destruction for over a year, the headline “things are not getting worse” may feel underwhelming. But in a data-driven analysis, the absence of deterioration is itself a meaningful signal: the adjustment has found its floor, and the ecosystem is stabilising — even if it has not yet turned the corner.