German Firm Insolvencies Rise 8.0 Percent in July as 7-Month Claims Fall to 21.9 Billion Euros

By The Edge Research Team

German local courts registered 2,373 applications for company insolvency in July 2026, 8.0 percent more than in July 2025, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) said on 9 October. Consumer insolvencies moved the other way, falling 5.9 percent from a year earlier to 7,111. Over the first 7 months of the year, company cases rose 6.9 percent to 15,185, yet the claims owed to creditors in those cases shrank to 21.9 billion euros from 31.8 billion euros a year earlier.

The July count tops every month on the official chart since 2018

July’s 2,373 is the highest of the 103 monthly readings in the official series charted from January 2018, on our reading of that series. It is above March 2026’s 2,308, the year’s previous peak, and above July 2025’s 2,197. It is also 4.7 percent higher than June’s 2,266, on our calculation.

Timing matters when reading the count. An application enters the statistics only after the insolvency court’s first decision, and the statistics office notes that in many cases the actual filing came almost 3 months earlier. Many of the July cases therefore reached the courts in the spring.

The longer comparison is starker than the year-on-year rate. July’s count is 44.3 percent above the 1,644 of July 2019 and 2.06 times the 1,154 of July 2022, on our calculation. 5 of the 7 months of 2026 so far ran above the same month of 2025; February and May were the exceptions, at 1.0 percent and 2.0 percent lower.

Company insolvency applications by month, 2025 and 2026

Applications registered by German local courts, from the official monthly series. Changes are our calculation; the published changes were +8.0% for July, +15.8% for June and -2.0% for May.

Claims fall as the count keeps climbing

The rising count and the falling sums owed point to the same shift. The office puts creditor claims in the January to July cases at 21.9 billion euros, against 31.8 billion euros a year earlier, and attributes the gap to more economically significant companies having filed for insolvency in the first 7 months of 2025 than in 2026.

The count itself keeps climbing from an already high base. On our calculation, the 7-month total of 15,185 equals 63.1 percent of the full-year 2025 figure of 24,064; at the same point of 2025 the running total was 59.0 percent of that year’s outcome. The 2025 total was itself 10.3 percent above 2024’s 21,812 and, on our reading of the annual table, the highest annual figure since 2014, when 24,085 were registered. The January to July 2026 count is 35.0 percent above the same period of 2019 and 1.84 times that of 2022, also on our calculation.

Company insolvencies, January to July and full year

January to July totals are our sums of the official monthly series; full-year totals are from the annual insolvency table of the statistics office. Shares are our calculation.

Transport, hospitality and construction run above the average rate

Across the economy there were 42.8 company insolvencies per 10,000 companies from January to July. Transport and storage recorded 85.5 cases per 10,000, twice the overall rate on our calculation, hospitality 70.0, or 1.6 times the average, and construction 62.9, or 1.5 times.

Building prices are still rising alongside those failures. A separate release on the same day showed residential building prices 5.5 percent higher in August 2026 than a year earlier, after a 5.0 percent annual rise in May, and 1.0 percent higher than in May. Finishing work cost 5.7 percent more and structural shell work 5.4 percent more than a year earlier.

Insolvency frequency, cases per 10,000 companies

Frequencies are cumulative from January, based on the number of legal units in the statistical business register. Multiples of the January to July average are our calculation.

Consumer cases fall in July

Consumer insolvencies give a different picture. The July count of 7,111 was 5.9 percent lower than a year earlier, though 4.0 percent above June’s 6,839 on our calculation. The 7-month total of 46,043 is 1.0 percent above last year, down from a 2.4 percent rise at the half-year mark. There were 3.00 consumer cases for every company case in July and 3.03 over the 7 months, also on our calculation.

Why it matters: For Germany, on our reading, the data describe a broad rather than a deep wave of business failure. More companies entered proceedings in the first 7 months than a year earlier, and July set the high point of the monthly series charted since 2018, but the claims at stake fell to 21.9 billion euros from 31.8 billion euros, which the statistics office puts down to fewer economically significant companies among them. That means less owed to creditors in this year’s cases than in last year’s, while insolvency frequency in transport, hospitality and construction runs 1.5 to 2.0 times the economy-wide rate on our calculation. The statistics record only closures that pass through insolvency proceedings, not businesses that shut for other reasons or before acute payment difficulties, so the count is not a measure of all business closures.

Outlook: Because applications enter the statistics only after the court’s first decision, many of the cases in the August figure will have been filed almost 3 months earlier. With 15,185 cases in 7 months, 2026 overtakes the 2025 total of 24,064 if the remaining 5 months add more than 8,879 cases, or 1,776 a month on average, on our calculation; every month of 2026 so far has been above that level, with January’s 1,919 the lowest.

Sources: Destatis, The Edge.

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