In —, — companies were born in the Grand Duchy and — closed. Nearly one in two new firms fails to reach its fifth year, and —% start with no employee at all. This dashboard assembles the STATEC series published on data.public.lu — business demographics, cohort survival, legal forms, labour cost, bankruptcies — to answer a single question: what should you know before starting your business?
Inflows outpace outflows almost every year: the Luxembourg business fabric (— active companies) keeps expanding. But the exit door is wide: in —, — companies closed for every 100 created. Mind the recent levels: the European overhaul of the statistical business register (EBS regulation, applied from 2021) mechanically inflates births and deaths — comparisons with earlier years should be handled with caution.
Of 100 companies started in —, — were still alive a year later; of 100 started in —, only — reached their fifth birthday. The sector gap is huge: the most robust sector (—) keeps —% of its young firms at five years, the most fragile (—) barely —%. Size your cash runway accordingly.
Each row is a different cohort (started in —), all observed in the same year — the business-cycle effect blends with the age effect.
9 in 10 new firms are in services. Two powerhouses concentrate half the births: health-education-personal services on one side, consulting and professional activities on the other. On the right, the entry/exit balance: a creation rate above the death rate signals a sector that draws in entrants — the reverse, a market that is closing.
Caution on the extremes of —: finance's −6 pt (12.7% closures, ×3 in one year) and the transport decline owe much to statistical-register reclassifications, not just to the economy.
A high creation rate tells you where entrants pour in; 5-year survival tells you who stays. Crossing the two separates the true welcoming grounds from the entrant traps — many births, high mortality. Bubble size: the number of births in —. The dashed lines: the national average.
An economist's read: top right, structural demand (health, ageing, service outsourcing) absorbs entrants; bottom left, mature markets with high churn where replacements outnumber genuine new ventures.
The Sàrl (incl. the Sàrl-S "from €1") dominates the birth race; the sole proprietorship remains the classic entry route for the self-employed.
of companies started in — have no employee at the outset, and —% have fewer than five. Going solo is the norm, not the exception.
Average headcount of companies started in —, at birth then five years later (—% jobs). Hiring comes after survival.
—% of companies with at least 10 employees are "high-growth" (+10%/yr headcount over 3 years) — fast growth exists, but it is rare.
First hire = first budget shock. The average employer cost (gross wage + employer social charges) reaches — € per full-time equivalent per year across all sectors — from — € (—) to — € (—). Legal floor: the minimum social wage, automatically indexed.
Four-yearly labour-cost survey (latest edition —) — levels have risen since with indexation.
The minimum wage is the absolute floor of any hire — it follows the sliding wage scale (automatic indexation of wages to inflation, a Luxembourg specificity). On top of the wage come employer social charges (~12–15%), already included in the per-FTE cost shown alongside.
Court bankruptcies — a subset of closures — are the only series available up to —. After a trough in 2022-2023, the series has climbed back toward its highs: — bankruptcies in —, i.e. —% more than the 2000-2019 average. Finance (funds and holdings included) pays by far the heaviest toll, ahead of retail and construction.
Before 2016, counted at publication in the Mémorial; since then, at the LBR register — the before/after comparison is indicative.
| Sector | Active | Births | Share of births | Birth rate | Death rate | Net | 5-yr survival | Bankruptcies — |
|---|
Market economy excluding agriculture, public administration and associations. "·": non-comparable scope (bankruptcies in education-health-personal services cannot be isolated in the courts' nomenclature). Creation/death rate = births/closures relative to the active stock; net = difference, in points.
Starting is easy: —% of the stock renews every year and a Sàrl-S opens from €1. Staying is the real test: —% of new firms had vanished before their fifth anniversary. The decision variable isn't the idea, it's the cash that crosses the valley — and hiring comes after survival (— → — employees in five years).
In —: — gross movements (births + deaths) for a net balance of just — companies. This is creative destruction in its purest form: a fluid market where failure is quickly reabsorbed — exiting is not a stigma, it's the normal way the Luxembourg economy works.
The sectors that draw in entrants are carried by slow forces — ageing, outsourcing, digitalisation: education-health-services (net — pt) and info-comm (net — pt). Conversely, retail, hospitality and transport combine a negative balance with low survival: there you replace a leaver more than you create a market.
A first permanent contract at the skilled minimum wage: ≈ — € gross per year, excluding employer social charges — and — € at the national average cost (—, before indexations). That's why —% of the national stock employs no one: in Luxembourg, solo entrepreneurship isn't a failure, it's the dominant model.