Central Business Register (CBR)

On 1 January 2024, there were 3,255,276 economically active enterprises in Spain, 1.5% more than on the same date the previous year.

By sectors, Other Services accounted for the largest proportion in the enterprise population structure, with 65.3% of the total.

This sector, which had 2,060,614 active enterprises, includes all those engaged in hospitality, transportation and storage, information and communications, financial and insurance activities, real estate, professional, scientific and technical activities, administrative activities and auxiliary services, educational, health and social assistance and other social activities, including personal services.

The proportion of Commerce was also significant, accounting for 19.5% of the total. This sector encompasses the enterprises engaged in wholesale and retail trading activities and trade brokers and intermediaries. 

Finally, enterprises in the Construction sector accounted for 11.8% of the total and those of Industry, 5.4%.

A total of 1.69 million enterprises did not employ any employees at all as of 1 January 2024. This figure represents 52.0% of the total. In addition, another 955,079 enterprises (29.3% of the total) had one or two employees. If these two groups are added together, 81.3% had two or fewer employees.

If we only consider enterprises with employees, those with 20 or more employees accounted for 4.8% of the total.

The highest percentage of small enterprises occurred in the Other Services sector (84.0% had two or fewer employees). In contrast, large enterprises were mostly concentrated in the Industrial sector, where 9.3% of the total employed 20 or more employees.  

18.6% of active enterprises on 1 January 2024 had existed for 20 years or more. On the other hand, 19.1% had not completed two years as economically active units.

The age distribution of enterprises shows significant variations by sector. Thus, industrial enterprises have the highest proportions of veteran enterprises (32.0% have existed for 20 years or more). More young enterprises are represented in activities related to the Services sector – especially in Hospitality (23.7% have not yet completed their second year of existence) and in the Construction sector (20.8%).

The age distribution is linked to size. Thus, the presence of very young enterprises was highly significant as of 1 January 2024 in the micro-enterprise segment (39.2% of the enterprises without employees were between their first and fourth years of existence).

On the other hand, there was a greater representation of older enterprises in the larger ones (33.9% of enterprises with 20 or more employees had existed for at least 20 years).

Based on last year’s trend, 376,872 enterprises began their economic activities during 2023, while 326,639 ceased all their activities. Meanwhile 80.4% of the units registered on 1 January 2024 were active on the same date in the previous year.

The sectors that created the most enterprises in net terms during 2023 were Real estate activities (7,024) and Land and pipeline transport (4,889).

In contrast, the sectors with the most negative overall figures were Retail trade, except motor vehicles and motorcycles (-5,895) and Wholesale trade and commission trade, except motor vehicles and motorcycles (-614).

Cataluña was the community with the most economically active enterprises on 1 January 2024, with 18.5% of the total. It was followed by Andalucía (16.3%) and Comunidad de Madrid (15.8%).

Active enterprises registered in the CBR carried out their activities in 3,795,625 premises established in all the national territory during 2023.

By autonomous community, Cataluña concentrated 18.6% of the total of premises, Andalucía 16.2% and Comunidad de Madrid 15.5%.

The data published today are final. All the results of this operation are available at INEbase.