Across 2001-2021, in New Zealand:
17% of businesses died (closed) within 1 year
1/3 died within 2 years
50% died within 4 years
2/3 died within 7 years

Other insights:
~2-3% more businesses are surviving 1-2 years now, than they did in the early 2000’s
~2-4% fewer businesses are surviving 6-18 years now, than those born in 2001
Businesses born from 2005-2009 (pre GFC) had 1-3% lower survival rates

Is this a natural attrition rate, or should we be doing better?

How does your business compare?

Have your say

NOTES:

  • The data is cumulative, e.g. 49% of businesses will survive until year 4 and 51% will have died (closed).
  • This data comes from Stats NZ’s annual Business Demography Statistics which shows March-February data. It started in 2000 and has measured enterprise births and deaths since 2001.
  • The March-February 2022 data, which includes the March lockdowns and also the latest August-December 2021 lockdowns, will be released in October 2022.
  • Stats NZ uses the terminology “enterprise births” and “enterprise deaths”.
  • An “enterprise” is a business or service entity operating in New Zealand. It can be a company, partnership, trust, estate, incorporated society, producer board, local or central government organisation, voluntary organisation, or self-employed individual.
  • The data only counts “economically significant enterprises” which are a) GST registered entities with turnover greater than $30,000 per year or b) non-GST registered entities who returned IR10 income forms showing revenue of $40,000 or more.
  • Since some survival rates have many data points, e.g. 20 years of data for one-year survival rates, we have applied a weighting where each year has 0.5% less rating than the one after it. This ensures that all years are counted, but more weight is given to more recent history.
  • We have not yet analysed business survival rates for other countries for comparison but would love your support to help us pull these together.
  • All numbers are provisional and subject to revision.
  • If you would like the full data analysis workings, please contact us.

SOURCES:

Custom reports from Statistics NZ.
You can see the 2011-2020 data (except for 2020-2021 1-year survival rates) via https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/new-zealand-business-demography-statistics-at-february-2021 (New Zealand business demography statistics: At February 2021 > Table 12) .

This work is based on/includes Stats NZ’s data which are licensed by Stats NZ for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.

Did we make a mistake, or have you got smarter data? Let us know.