Insee Première · February 2022 · n° 1892

Boom of companies’ births and of micro-entrepreneurs’ registrations in 2021

In 2021, the number of enterprise births in France reached a record level of 995,900, an increase of 17% from 2020, the year of the previous record, despite a sharp decline in enterprise births during the first lockdown in 2020. The number of enterprise births was almost 80% higher than its average level during the 2010-2017 period, before the recent expansion in enterprise births. As in previous years, the strong increase in 2021 was driven by registrations of sole proprietorships under the micro-entrepreneurs scheme (+17%). Company births also went up sharply (+24%), while conventional sole proprietorships’ births increased more moderately (+2%).

This growth is marked in most sectors: those that contribute the most are transportation and storage (+25%), professional, scientific and technical activities (+17%) and other household services (+42%).

The number of new enterprises also increased sharply in all regions, by at least 9%.