Last year, 282,658 entrepreneurs ceased their activities in the Czech Republic, which is a record number of closed businesses in the country. At the same time, there was the greatest interest in starting a business: a large number of new self-employed entrepreneurs of Ukrainian origin appeared. Proukrainu writes about this with a link to analysis data from CRIF – the Czech Credit History Bureau.
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Why Czechs are closing businesses
The reason for closing my own business was due to the new obligation to have a digital data box. At the same time, 72,529 people opened their own businesses—the most in the last decade. In total, last year there were 210,129 entrepreneurs.
“Last year was marked by the mandatory introduction of a digital data box for entrepreneurs. This also caused many who were already inactive to close their businesses. Thus, the new commitment led to a cleansing of the business mainly from long-term inactive entrepreneurs. Due to the significant number of entrepreneurs who de facto no longer existed, de jure their number decreased by a tenth,” noted CRIF analyst Vera Kamenichkova.
10% of new entrepreneurs are Ukrainians
At the same time, over the last decade there has been the greatest interest in starting a business. According to the company, the large number of new business owners is also explained by the Ukrainian minority, which is gradually adapting to the Czech environment.
“Last year, Ukrainians made up a tenth of the total number of new entrepreneurs, in 2022 – 8%, while in previous years their share reached 2%,” she added. Ukrainians make up 2.4% of the total number of private entrepreneurs and are the largest group of entrepreneurs of Czech origin.
In December last year, 4,788 people started doing business, and 6,092 stopped doing business. After four months, when the number of entrepreneurs in the Czech Republic grew, in the last month of the year there were 1,304 fewer of them. In 2023, the most people started a business in Prague, namely 12,476, in the Usti Region – 9,815, in the South Moravian Region – 8,232. The most people closed their businesses also in Prague – 34,649. This is followed by the Usti Region with 34,379 entrepreneurs and the South Morovsky region with 29,561. In 2022, the most new private entrepreneurs appeared in the Pardubice region.
