Retail: Fewer and fewer shops are opening: down 45 per cent compared with 2014
The sector is consolidating: between 2019 and 2025, the number of employees rose by 12.1 per cent, whilst the number of self-employed fell by 135,000
Key points
Among the side effects of Italia’s demographic crisis, there is one that can be observed whilst travelling through the small towns of the peninsula: the spread of commercial desertification. In one in five towns with fewer than 5,000 inhabitants, it is impossible to find a grocery shop, and in two out of five, it is impossible to come across a tobacconist’s.
Negative balance
This is one of the findings to emerge from the analysis by the Confesercenti Observatory, which forecasts a further decline for 2026: by the end of the year, the association estimates that 23,934 new retail businesses will be registered with the Chambers of Commerce, almost half the figure of 43,324 recorded in 2014 (-44.8 per cent) and 5.7 per cent fewer than in 2025. Against these new openings, an estimated 42,849 voluntary closures are expected. The net balance between registrations and closures remains negative at 18,915 businesses, a deterioration compared with the 17,874 recorded in 2025. In detail, there were almost 1.8 closures for every new business opening. Consequently, the total number of businesses is dwindling: there were 733,703 active retail businesses in June 2025, falling to 702,938 by May 2026 – a reduction of over 30,000 in eleven months.
Gronchi: it’s becoming increasingly difficult to start a business
“Retail,” comments Nico Gronchi, national president of Confesercenti, “has long been the gateway to entrepreneurship: the sector through which entire generations have started their own businesses, helping to build the country’s prosperity. Today, that gateway is closing: starting a business is becoming increasingly difficult, and without new entrants, the commercial fabric is failing to renew itself and is dwindling. And local areas are becoming impoverished: fewer commercial services, fewer jobs, less wealth generated and, consequently, fewer tax revenues for local authorities.”
Enrolment figures down in sixteen regions
The slowdown in new business start-ups is affecting almost the whole country, as new registrations are expected to fall in sixteen out of twenty regions. The sharpest declines are expected in Liguria (-8.3 per cent) and Calabria (-8.1 per cent), but the largest regions are having the greatest impact on the national total: Lombardy, the country’s largest market, is expected to see a loss of 269 new businesses (-7 per cent), Lazio 155 (-7.1%), Puglia 142 (-6.2%) and Sicily 151. Together, the top four regions for registrations — Campania, Lombardy, Puglia and Lazio — account for almost half of all new business start-ups in Italy, and all are seeing a decline. Closures, on the other hand, show little change: -0.9% nationally. However, in the smaller regions, the ratio of closures to new business start-ups reaches its highest levels: 2.7 closures for every new business in Valle d’Aosta, 2.5 in Molise and 2.2 in Liguria.
The decline in the sectors
As for the sectors, the decline is concentrated in non-specialised retail trade, which fell from 7,197 to 4,523 new registrations (-37.2 per cent): 2,674 fewer, almost double the overall national decline, which stood at 1,442. Retail sales of motor vehicles, motorcycles and related parts also fell (-9.8%, 291 fewer registrations), whilst food, beverages and tobacco remained largely unchanged (-1.4%).
