Enterprise births in 2016 The greatest increase in six years, driven by transport

In 2016, there were 554,000 enterprise births in France, 6% more than in 2015. Traditional individual enterprise births and those of companies increased substantially (+10%). However, registrations of micro-entrepreneurs fell slightly (–0.3%). With a 56% growth in enterprise births in 2016, the “transportation and storage” sector accounted for almost half of this growth overall.

All types of enterprise combined, births increased in virtually all regions. This was particularly so in Île-de-France, where the success of the carriage of passengers by taxi and “other postal and courier activities” was confirmed.

Excluding micro-entrepreneurs, only 7% of enterprises had employees when they were created. They started out with 2.6 employees on average.

For individual enterprise creators, the average age was 37, whereas it was only 29 in transportation and storage. The share of women enterprise creators remained at 40%.