Startup Report for August 2016
Startup Report shows in August 2016, a total of 2,781 new companies were entered in the commercial register. This represents a growth of 6.8% compared to August last year. You can find further details in our Business Start-Up Report for August 2016 (Gründungsbericht August 2016).
(Source: Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce (SHAB))
Startup Report for July 2016
In all, 2,781 new startup with different legal forms were entered into the commercial register in August. Compared to the previous month (July), this represents a very dramatic decline of 24.14% even though July was already a below-average start-up month. This year, the peak summertime figure was already reached in June instead of July (cf. Business Start-Up Report for June 2016, Gründungsbericht Juni 2016). According to experience, after the summertime peak, start-up figures tumble to their annual low in August.
It has nonetheless been possible to record a slight increase of 6.8% compared to August 2015. At that time, a total of 2,604 new companies were registered. While it is true that the second half of 2016 got off to a bad start with July, August is however already better than in the previous years. In addition, figures are normally expected to see a steep rise from August to the end of the year. As business start-up figures were particularly high in the first half of 2016 (cf. the Business Start-Up Report for the first half of 2016), a new record could even be set this year.
Limited liability, incorporated and one-man companies predominate
Most new companies are founded in the legal form of a limited liability company. In Switzerland, a total of 1,061 limited liability companies were founded in August 2016. Limited liability companies thereby made up 38.15% of all business start-ups, followed in second place by one-man companies, with 964 new registrations, representing a proportion of 34.66%. Incorporated companies were the third most frequent type of new business started up: 494 incorporated companies were registered, constituting a proportion of 17.76%. These three legal forms together total over 90% of all new registrations. Most of the remaining new companies registered were branch offices (2.84%) and partnerships (Kollektivgesellschaften) (2.59%).
Comparing cantons
With a total of 481 new company start-ups, the canton of Zurich lies far ahead, with a record 17.3% of all new companies registered in Switzerland. Waadt lags a good way behind, with only 10.5%. The canton of Geneva, with 8.74%, has once more managed to increase its share of new Swiss start-ups, thus moving into third place and supplanting the canton of Bern (7.55%).
The growth figures in the individual cantons are shown in the following table.
