1,966,938 companies—46% of theoretically “alive” businesses—have not actually published official acts or filed their annual accounts with official registries in recent years, according to data from a study conducted by Iberinform, a subsidiary of Crédito y Caución.
When examining the number of companies that filed their 2024 annual accounts with the Mercantile Registry (the last full financial year), there is a 6.6% drop from the historic high recorded in 2021. Starting in 2022, a slight downward trend in the number of officially filed annual accounts has been recorded, which could point to a decline in the dynamism of the Spanish business landscape.
Failure to comply with filing obligations can carry major consequences for a company, including the temporary closure of its registry page. This prevents the Mercantile Registry from recording any documents, with a few exceptions such as the resignation or removal of directors. Other risks include the potential classification of bankruptcy proceedings as fault-based, the possibility of the company itself, its partners, or its creditors claiming damages from directors for the failure to file, and the imposition of heavy fines by the Institute of Accounting and Accounts Auditing (ICAC).
Data broken down by autonomous communities shows that the cities of Ceuta and Melilla have the highest inactivity rate (52%) among their registered active companies. They are followed by the Canary Islands and Andalusia at 49%, and the Valencian Community and Murcia at 47%. On the opposite end, La Rioja (31%) is the Spanish community with the lowest percentage of inactivity among registered active companies, followed by Navarre (35%), the Basque Country (36%), and Aragon and Extremadura (37%). Overall, there is a slight worsening in the volume of companies registered as active but exhibiting no activity compared to 2025.
