Russia lost almost 40,000 companies in a year of war

According to the results of the year of the war with Ukraine, the number of commercial enterprises operating in Russia decreased by almost 40,000, experts of the FinExpertiza audit and consulting network calculated based on data from the Federal Tax Service.

Although the number of liquidated businesses decreased by 25% and became the lowest since 2015 (280.2 thousand), the death rate of companies still turned out to be higher than the “birth rate”. During the year, 242.1 thousand new legal entities and individual entrepreneurs were opened in the country – 9% more than in 2021.

“Only in a quarter of the regions did companies open more often than they closed,” notes FinExpertiza: Moscow, the Moscow Region and Chechnya are among them.

At the same time, in the vast majority of subjects, the number of operating enterprises has decreased, and in some – businesses were closed 2-3 times more often than they were opened. Anti-leaders are the Voronezh region (open companies 39% of the number of closed ones), Komi (40.8%), Bashkortostan (41.1%), Vologda region (41.7%), Rostov region (44.2%), Samara region (45.6%).

Voronezh region (39.1% of the number of closed companies), Komi (40.8%), Bashkortostan (41.1%), Vologda region (41.7%), Rostov region (44.2%), Samara region ( 45.6%), Bryansk region (45.7%), Kursk region (48.2%), Volgograd region (48.5%) and Tambov region (48.6%).

Most of the companies that closed last year were excluded from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities by decision of the tax authorities. About 175.2 thousand enterprises, or 62.5%, were convicted of providing incorrect information and did not correct them within six months. “These are companies with signs of a fictitious business, where the management owns many legal entities, and several organizations are registered at the address of the enterprise,” FinExpertiza notes.

Another 55.9 thousand enterprises, or 20%, were actually inactive companies: for 12 months they did not submit tax returns and did not conduct operations on bank accounts. At the initiative of the owners, 49 thousand companies, or 17.5%, were liquidated, including 6.9 thousand in bankruptcy proceedings.

From April 1 to October, there was a moratorium on bankruptcies in Russia. And its cancellation “led to an avalanche-like increase in applications from loans to go to courts,” says Serhiy Savosko, a lawyer at the Delcredere Bar Association: in October their number doubled last year’s figures, and in November – 1.4 times.

In the future, this will lead to the same increase in bankruptcies, Savosko believes.

Only 12% of Russian companies plan to expand their business in the face of sanctions, recession, falling effective demand and the destruction of ties with foreign partners, showed a survey jointly conducted by the Institute for the Economics of Growth. P.A. Stolypin, Expert RA and the Institute for Comprehensive Strategic Studies (ICSI). The vast majority – 48% of entrepreneurs – think only about how to keep the business.