Troubled society

Business crisis alarm, +29% in the first six months of 2025

According to the Unioncamere-Infocamere Observatory, the increase has been uninterrupted for four years. Since 2022, the start of new procedures has risen by more than 61%. Judicial liquidations are the most used procedure

by Bianca Lucia Mazzei

9 November 2025

4' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

4' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

The upward trend in bankruptcy proceedings continues unabated. In the first half of this year, proceedings in the field of business bankruptcy increased by 29%, from 5,505 registered in January-June 2024 to 7,116 in the same period in 2025. In the whole of 2024, there were 11,701 insolvency proceedings, up 22% from the previous year.

In fact, the increase has continued uninterruptedly for four years and signals the difficulties of companies in an economic situation that continues to be characterised by geopolitical instability, wars and rising energy costs. If we project the figures for the first half of 2025 onto the whole year, the increase compared to 2022 is more than 61%: from 8,828 procedures in 2022 to an estimated 14,232 in 2025 (but it could be more as many procedures are concentrated in the latter part of the year).

Photographing the situation is the Report prepared by the Unioncamere Business Crisis Observatory (based on Infocamere data) that monitors the opening of procedures governed by the Crisis Code. These are therefore companies that have already been in difficulty for some time but that are surveyed when the bankruptcy procedure initiated in court is notified to the Business Register or when access to the negotiated settlement, the out-of-court path that aims to anticipate the emergence of the crisis, is requested.

"The resumption of bankruptcy proceedings," says Andrea Prete, president of Unioncamere, "clearly shows that the beneficial effects of the interventions put in place to support companies during the pandemic, the energy price and international crises are over. Unfortunately, companies (especially small ones) fail to perceive the onset of crisis signs in time. The increase in the use of negotiated settlements is a positive sign that goes in this direction, but other tools, such as appropriate arrangements, despite being mandatory for some time, are still perceived as a business cost and not as an opportunity to anticipate the crisis'.

L’ANDAMENTO

Gli iter concorsuali dal 2022 al 2025 (proiezione del dato semestrale)

LE PROCEDURE CONCORSUALI

Liquidations

In absolute values, the most frequently used procedure is that of judicial liquidations, the locution with which the Crisis Code has replaced the term bankruptcy. In the first half of 2025, there were 5,286 liquidations and they accounted for 74% of the total proceedings. The increase compared to the first half of 2024 was 25 per cent. In four years, however, they rose by 53 per cent, from 6,888 in 2022 to 10,572 in 2025 (again based on the annual projection of the half-year figure).

In addition to being the most widely used procedure, judicial liquidation is also the procedure where smaller companies predominate: in the first half of 2025, 61% had a production value of up to one million euro and 80% had no more than five employees (on average, there are six employees and turnover is two million). It is therefore a procedure that, as the Report states, mainly concerns "more fragile and less structured companies, confirming the existence of a direct relationship between solidity and company size".

Trade and construction are the business sectors with the highest percentage of companies that initiated a judicial liquidation in the first six months of 2025. In fact, 23.2 per cent of the companies are in wholesale and retail trade, 22.2 per cent in construction, and another 16.3 per cent in manufacturing.

The arrangement with creditors

On the other hand, the companies entering the concordato preventivo are larger: in the first half of 2025, they had, on average, 36 employees and a production value of nine million (numbers very similar to those of the companies that entered the negotiated settlement).

The use of the arrangement procedure has been decreasing for years, but in the first half of 2025 there was a slight increase (+4.3% compared to the first half of 2024), which could indicate a trend reversal.

The negotiated settlement

Introduced in November 2021 to bring companies' economic and financial difficulties to light before they become irretrievable and increase their chances of recovery, negotiated settlement is growing strongly (+75% in the first half of 2025).

Already last year, more companies resorted to it than used the arrangement procedure, and the same happened in 2025. The negotiated settlement is therefore establishing itself as the preferred procedure for companies wishing to attempt the path of reorganisation (an assessment of the results will be the subject of the Unioncamere conference to be held in Rome on Thursday 13).

Over the years, the average size of companies has also gradually increased in terms of both production value and employees. The turnover of companies requesting a negotiated settlement increased from 4 million in 2021 to 9 million in 2023, rising to 10 million in 2024 and 11 million in the first half of 2025. The average number of employees increased from 26 in 2022 to 38 in the first half of 2025.

28% of the companies came from manufacturing, 22.4% from wholesale and retail trade and 9.6% from construction.

The simplified arrangement

One of the outcomes of the negotiated settlement when a path to recovery is identified is the simplified settlement, also introduced in 2021. In the first half of 2025, companies with, on average, 13 employees and 10 million in production value used it. As the Report points out, it is therefore a procedure 'requested by the most undersized companies'.

The Restructuring Agreement

Finally, recourse to debt restructuring agreements has remained substantially stable over the years (+3% in the first half of 2025 and -0.8% in four years). From January to June this year, companies with an average of 89 employees and 10 million in production value made use of it.