Insee Première · April 2026 · n° 2097

Economically active enterprises in 2023 5.8 million enterprises: growth slowing due to an increase in business closures

In 2023, the number of market and economically active enterprises reached 5.8 million across the industry, construction, trade and services sectors. The number of enterprises continued to grow strongly (+4.1%), albeit at a slightly slower pace than in 2022 (+4.8%). This slowdown stemmed from an increase in business closures: the business exit rate rose from 11.1% to 11.7% between 2021 and 2022, whilst the business entry rate remained at 15.8% in 2023, as in 2022. This rise in the business exit rate mainly affected traditional companies and conventional sole proprietorships, and amongst these, particularly those in the retail, accommodation and catering, and construction sectors.

The strong growth in the number of economically active enterprises continued to be driven by the vitality of micro‑entrepreneurs (+6.5%), who accounted for a third of economic actors. Conversely, the number of conventional sole proprietorships continued to fall (−0.4%). The number of companies, meanwhile, grew by 4.6%. The latter were characterised by high economic survival rates. Thus, companies had a nine‑year survival rate of nearly 60%, compared with just one‑third for micro-entrepreneurs.