11 December 2025

Central Business Register (CBR)

1 January 2025

Main results

The number of active enterprises increased by 1.7% during 2025 and stood at 3.31 million.
18.9% of active enterprises were 20 or more years old and 19.9% were less than two years old.

More information

On 1 January 2025, there were 3,310,824 economically active enterprises in Spain, 1.7% more than on the same date the previous year.

At an aggregate level, the sector with the greatest weight in the structure of the business population was Commerce, with 625,664 active companies (18.9% of the total). This sector encompasses the enterprises engaged in wholesale and retail trading activities and trade brokers and intermediaries.

The weight of Professional, scientific and technical activities was also significant, accounting for 12.6% of the total. This sector comprises companies engaged in legal and accounting activities, research and development, advertising and market research, business management consultancy activities, architectural and engineering technical services, testing and technical analysis, veterinary activities, and other professional, scientific and technical activities.

Finally, enterprises in the Construction sector accounted for 11.8% of the total and those of Industry, 5.2%.

Active enterprises by number of employees

A total of 1.80 million enterprises did not employ any employees at all as of 1 January 2025. This figure represents 54.4% of the total. In addition, 27.2% of the total had one or two employees. If these two groups are added together, 81.6% had two or fewer employees.

If we only consider enterprises with employees, those with 20 or more employees accounted for 5.0% of the total.

The highest percentage of small enterprises occurred in the Real estate activities (94.4% had two or fewer employees). In contrast, large enterprises were mostly concentrated in the Industrial sector, where 9.6% of the total employed 20 or more employees.

Active enterprises by economic sector, by employee range

Information as of 1 January 2025

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Note: The category Other services includes Associative activities, Computer repair, personal effects and household items, and Other personal services.

Active enterprises by age

18.9% of active enterprises on 1 January 2025 had existed for 20 years or more. On the other hand, 19.9% 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 older enterprises (32.4% have existed for 20 years or more).

More young enterprises are represented in activities related to the Information and communication -30.2% have not yet completed their second year of existence- and in the Transportation/storage sector (24.9%).

Active enterprises by economic sector, by age range

Information as of 1 January 2025

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Active enterprises by size and age ranges

The age distribution is linked to size. Thus, the presence of very young enterprises was highly significant as of 1 January 2025 in the micro-enterprise segment (39.9% 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 (34.4% of enterprises with 20 or more employees had existed for at least 20 years).

Active enterprises that have a sole proprietor as legal support, by gender

The CBR recorded 1,859,925 enterprises that had a sole proprietor as their legal support as of 1 January 2025. This population accounted for 56.2% of the total set of units.

Of these enterprises, 37.9% had a woman as the sole proprietor. However, it should be noted that this representativeness is not uniform by activity.

Thus, activities related to Other services Activities recorded a majority presence of businesswomen (65.4% of the total) and Education, health and social Activities (59.1% of the total).

On the other hand, men were the majority in Construction (97.1% of the total) and Transportation and Storage (87.8%).

Detailed activity sectors, by gender of the business person

Information as of 1 January 2025

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Enterprise registrations and deregistrations

Based on last year’s trend, 394,977 enterprises began their economic activities during 2024, while 324,270 ceased all their activities.

Meanwhile 80.2% of the units registered on 1 January 2025 were active on the same date in the previous year.

Movements registered with respect to 1 January 2024 by demographic category

Information as of 1 January 2025

The sectors that created the most enterprises in net terms during 2024 were Real estate activities (6,931) and Construction of buildings (6,889).

Sectors with the greatest net creation of enterprises

Information as of 1 January 2025

In contrast, the sectors with the most negative overall figures were Retail trade, except motor vehicles and motorcycles (-4,392) and Gambling and betting activities (-325).

Sectors with the largest net number of enterprises that have ceased their activity

Information as of 1 January 2025

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Active enterprises by autonomous communities

Cataluña was the community with the most economically active enterprises on 1 January 2025, with 18.4% of the total. It was followed by Andalucía (16.3%) and Comunidad de Madrid (15.9%).

Active enterprises by economic sector and by autonomous communities and cities

Information as of 1 January 2025

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 "526,588",
 "17,424",
 "54,387",
 "78,558",
 "36,864",
 "27,687",
 "54,373",
 "257,295",
 "93,956",
 "6,512",
 "11,140",
 "21,468",
 "5,284",
 "7,033",
 "7,848",
 "34,671",
 "42,375",
 "3,713",
 "5,510",
 "7,881",
 "3,245",
 "3,111",
 "3,561",
 "15,354",
 "134,953",
 "9,495",
 "17,938",
 "25,489",
 "9,101",
 "12,380",
 "13,871",
 "46,679",
 "21,481",
 "2,001",
 "2,426",
 "4,317",
 "1,031",
 "1,897",
 "1,664",
 "8,145",
 "3,236",
 "63",
 "262",
 "1,006",
 "252",
 "226",
 "303",
 "1,124",
 "4,396",
 "115",
 "464",
 "1,548",
 "224",
 "309",
 "403",
 "1,333"
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Note: The category Rest of the Services includes Information and Communications, Financial and Insurance Activities, Real Estate Activities, Professional, Scientific and Technical Activities, Administrative and Support Service Activities, Artistic, Recreational and Entertainment Activities and other services.

Active premises by autonomous communities

Active enterprises registered in the CBR carried out their activities in 3,866,958 premises established in all the national territory during 2024.

By autonomous community, Cataluña concentrated 18.5% of the total of premises, Andalucía 16.3% and Comunidad de Madrid 15.6%.

Data revisions and updates

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

Methodological note

Due to the entry into force of EBS Regulation 2019/2152 and its Implementation Act 2020/1197, the statistical use of the Central Business Register (CBR) has adopted some methodological changes since 2022. The new definition of economically active enterprise, implemented in 2022, affects the count of the number of active enterprises, so there is a break in series in 2022 and the data are not comparable with those of previous years.

On the other hand, the CBR continues to use the concept of the enterprise implemented in 2018, according to which the aspects of organisational structure, decision-making autonomy and market orientation are emphasised. In short, the economic factors of the units take precedence over the traditional vision, more oriented to legal aspects.

The Central Business Register (CBR) brings together in a single information system all Spanish enterprises and their local units located in the national territory. It is a key infrastructure tool for the development and coordination of the research system aimed at production units.

To meet this requirement, the CBR must be duly updated and the units must be listed with reliable identification, location and classification data.

The CBR is assembled and maintained on an annual basis, based on data from various sources of administrative and statistical origin. All this information undergoes a sophisticated process of filtering treatments, harmonisation and integration in order to achieve complete national coverage.

Other goals of the CBR are:

To provide structural data on the number of enterprises and premises existing in Spain classified according to their main economic activity, employee ranges, legal condition and geographic location.
To provide data on the temporal evolution of enterprises in terms of newly registered enterprises, existing enterprises and deregistered enterprises, identified in the year the Register was updated, and their classification by the usual variables.
To satisfy the information demands required by international organisations, and in particular, by the Statistical Office of the European Union (Eurostat).

More information on the methodology and the standardised methodological report.

INE statistics are produced in accordance with the Code of Good Practice for European Statistics. More information on Quality at INE and the Code of Best Practices.

For further information see

Official INE account on @es_ine

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