Government · UK · Office for National Statistics
UK Registered Businesses Rise 1.9% to 2.79 Million
The UK had 2.79 million businesses registered for VAT or PAYE in March 2026, up 1.9% and the highest count in the 2021 to 2026 series. For the first time since 2017, every UK region and nation added businesses.
Source published Summarised
Key findings at a glance
- 2.79m UK businesses registered for VAT, PAYE or both at March 2026
- 1.9% Annual rise in that count, after a 0.1% fall in 2024 and 0.4% growth in 2025
- 2.8% Growth in the number of companies over the year, while sole proprietors fell 0.6%
- 77.3% Share of UK businesses that are companies, up from 75.6% in 2024
- 43.0% Of the 2.2 million registered companies are single-employee limited companies
- 15.3% Share held by professional, scientific and technical firms, the largest industry group
- 216,000 Retail businesses, 7.7% of the UK total, after 1.4% growth on 2025
- 191,000 Information and communication businesses, up 1.5% on 2025
- 6.3% Growth in property businesses, the fastest of any broad industry group
- 2.6% Growth in London, the fastest of the 12 UK regions and nations
- 3.2m Business sites (local units) across the UK, up 1.6% on 2025
- 57,975 Businesses that operate from more than one site
What the report covers
The Office for National Statistics published UK business; activity, size and location: 2026 on 24 September 2026. It counts every enterprise registered for VAT, PAYE or both on the Inter-Departmental Business Register at a snapshot taken on 13 March 2026, and breaks the total down by legal status, industry, region, and employment and turnover size bands. The snapshot is taken at the same point every year, so editions line up year on year, although ONS notes several methodology breaks in the register over time.
The headline count is 2,786,985 businesses, up 1.9% from 2,734,615 in 2025. That follows two flat years (a 0.1% fall in 2024 and 0.4% growth in 2025) and is the highest figure in the 2021 to 2026 series ONS charts with the release. Nearly all of the growth came from companies, which rose 2.8% to 2,155,395 and now make up 77.3% of UK businesses. Sole proprietors fell 0.6% and partnerships 3.0%. Every region and nation grew, which has not happened since 2017. London was fastest at 2.6%, taking it to 553,000 businesses and 19.8% of the UK total, and the North West was second at 2.4% after a small fall the year before. The South West grew least, at 1.1%.
By industry, professional, scientific and technical firms remain the largest group at 428,000 (15.3%), ahead of construction at 393,000. Property grew fastest at 6.3%, and ONS notes the number of property businesses has risen every year since 2012. Education followed at 5.4%. Manufacturing (down 1.6%) and business administration and support services (down 1.5%) shrank. This is a stock count at March, so read it alongside the flow data in our earlier report on how 97 UK businesses closed for every 100 created in Q2: the population grew over the year to March, but births and deaths were close to level in the following quarter.
What this means for UK marketers
For anyone selling to UK businesses, this release is the denominator, and the first thing it should change is how market size gets quoted. The 2.79 million here is the registered core: businesses that are registered for VAT or run a payroll. It leaves out most unregistered sole traders, which is why the Department for Business and Trade's Business population estimates, which add an estimate of unregistered businesses, arrive at a larger figure. Use the ONS count when you are sizing a market of firms that can raise a purchase order and appear on a prospect list. Use the larger figure only if your product genuinely serves one-person traders below the VAT threshold.
Second, the typical buyer is one person. 43.0% of registered companies have a single employee, and only 57,975 businesses operate from more than one site. A large share of any SME prospect list has no procurement team and no marketing department, just an owner who is also doing the work. Landing pages written for a buying committee (long whitepapers, gated demos, no prices) ask too much of that reader. Short pages with a clear first step, visible pricing where you can show it, and proof from firms of a similar size serve them better.
Third, point acquisition budgets at the sectors that are growing. Property, education, finance and insurance, transport and health all grew at more than twice the national rate, which means a steady supply of new firms with no incumbent supplier. In shrinking sectors such as manufacturing the job is retention and share of a fixed pool, not volume. If you run Google Ads for lead generation into the SME market, sector-specific ad groups and landing pages for those growth verticals are a better use of spend than one generic campaign.
Finally, growth was national. London holds under a fifth of UK businesses, so a B2B campaign geo-fenced to London and the South East by habit is ignoring most of the market, and this year every region added firms. Many of those new companies will need a web presence from scratch: our earlier report found that 78% of UK businesses now have a website, which leaves a meaningful minority still to reach.
How they got the data
The figures come from a snapshot of the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR) taken on 13 March 2026, the same timing as every previous edition. The IDBR is the government's list of UK businesses for statistical purposes and the sampling frame for ONS business surveys. Its main inputs are VAT and PAYE records from HM Revenue and Customs, supplemented by Companies House, Dun and Bradstreet and ONS survey returns. A business in this release means an enterprise, and a site means a local unit such as a shop, office or factory. The ONS quality and methodology information sets out the strengths and limitations in full.
Three caveats matter when quoting these numbers. Coverage is limited to VAT and PAYE registered businesses, so it is not a count of every business in the UK. In late 2025 ONS switched its industry coding to a new tool, ClassifAI, which showed 93% agreement with the previous tool at the five-digit industry level, so changes in fine-grained sectors partly reflect coding and should be treated with care. And figures are rounded individually under disclosure control, so components may not sum to totals, while multiple business registrations at a single address can distort counts for small geographic areas.
Government · UK
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From Office for National Statistics · published 24/09/2026