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The number of new businesses being set up in Germany continues to grow: Around 277,000 of all new businesses established in 2025 were in the commercial sector, and 110,000 were in the liberal professions. Overall, the structural shift in favour of the liberal professions has continued.
The number of new businesses is on the rise again in the commercial sector, the liberal professions and in agriculture and forestry (the non-commercial sector): in 2025, a total of around 395,000 full-time self-employed businesses were established.
Developments in detail
Around 277,000 of all new business start-ups are in the commercial sector. As the business registration statistics for the first half of 2025 over-recorded the number of full-time and small-scale business start-ups in some smaller federal states, whilst under-recording the number of part-time start-ups, the actual figure is likely to be slightly lower than reported. Overall the number of commercial start-ups has risen again over the past two years.
Around 110,000 start-ups were registered in the liberal professions in 2025. While this figure is likely to be slightly overstated due to changes in evaluation practices in 13 tax administrations, the number of new founders still exceeded previous years. Compared with 2024, start-ups in agriculture and forestry also increased. Overall, start-up activity has picked up across all three sectors, with the structural shift towards the liberal professions continuing.
Start-up intensity is highest in Berlin and Hamburg
Berlin and Hamburg recorded the highest number of start-ups per 10,000 working-age inhabitants, followed by Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein.
Compared with 2015, start-up intensity in 2025 rose in both the eastern German federal states and in Baden-Württemberg, Hamburg, Lower Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate, Schleswig-Holstein and Saarland.
The researchers at the IfM Bonn regularly compile statistics on business start-ups and business closures in Germany. These are based on business registration and deregistration data from the Federal Statistical Office as well as analyses from the tax authorities of the federal states. They exclude from the data any reporting events that are not relevant to start-ups or closures, such as changes in legal form, for example.
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