Judicial settlement procedures, growing by 18% in the second quarter of 2025

In Italy, judicial liquidation procedures are on the rise again. After years in which there was little increase, in the second quarter of this year the Cribis report records double-digit growth (18%) compared to the second quarter of 2024. The regions with the highest number of judicial liquidations are Lombardy with 543 between April, May and June, Lazio with 400 and Emilia-Romagna with 239. As for the sectors, the most critical situation is in trade, where the number in the second quarter rises to 826, in construction with 600, and in services with 597. The CEO of the Crif group company specialising in providing information, solutions and consultancy to businesses, Marco Preti, explains that 'the increase in judicial liquidations in the second quarter of 2025 highlights the difficulties that many Italian businesses are facing in a still fragile economic context. Inflation that continues to remain high, together with new tensions in global trade, create real risks: tariffs and protectionist measures could curb exports and interrupt supply chains. The companies most affected will be those SMEs most closely linked to international markets'.

The numbers collected by Cribis for the second quarter of 2025, lead us to talk about a total of 2,712 companies involved in a judicial liquidation procedure: this is an increase of 18% in one year and 33% compared to the same period in 2023. While the dynamic appears to be increasing, the numbers are still below pre-Covid levels.

The sector where the growth trend is strongest is construction, where cases rose from 493 in 2024 to 600, an increase of 22%. This is followed by trade, which has the highest absolute numbers: in three months there were 826 judicial liquidations, up 16% from 713 in the first quarter of 2025. Services also worsened, with judicial liquidations up 8% from 555 in 2024 to 597 in 2025.

In the region, Cribis records the highest numbers where there is the greatest concentration of companies and also the greatest exposure to critical macroeconomic factors. Thus in Lombardy in the second quarter of 2025 the highest number of judicial liquidations were concentrated (543). There are slightly fewer in Lazio (400) and much less than half in Emilia-Romagna (239). In these three areas, 43.5% of the national total is concentrated. At the opposite extreme are Valle d'Aosta with only one case, Molise with 5 judicial liquidations, and Basilicata with 7.

Judicial liquidations are growing, but so are arrangements with creditors, which totalled 129 in the second quarter of 2025, compared to 94 in the same period of 2024. This is a growth of 37%, which, for Cribis, confirms the increasing use of crisis regulation tools by companies in difficulty.