On 1 October 2026 the Companies House register listed 5,589,063 live companies. 624,715 of them last filed dormant accounts, reporting a year with no trading at all. That's 11.2%, about 1 in 9.
The real share is higher. 1,450,104 live companies are too new to have filed any accounts yet. Count only companies that have filed at least once, and about 1 in 7 is dormant (15.1%).
A dormant company still exists. It has directors, it files a short balance sheet every year, and it can start trading again without telling anyone. The GOV.UK definition turns on "significant accounting transactions": a company with none in the year is dormant for that year.
On this page 7 sections
Why the register's addresses mislead
Every company has a registered office, and the register gives its postcode. Many of those offices belong to formation agents and accountants, who register companies by the thousand at one address. 5,600 postcodes each hold 100 or more live companies, 1,895,775 between them: 34.6% of every company we could place. 149 postcodes hold 1,000 or more each. The biggest, in the WC2H district of Camden, holds 88,345.
We call these shared offices. They hold 223,910 dormant companies, 35.9% of the total, and they're why a raw count lights up a few London boroughs. Camden has 21,974 dormant companies on the register. At addresses other than shared offices it has 4,647.
| Council area | Dormant companies registered | At shared offices | At other addresses |
|---|---|---|---|
| Westminster | 23,409 | 15,503 | 7,906 |
| Camden | 21,974 | 17,327 | 4,647 |
| Islington | 12,461 | 9,509 | 2,952 |
| Birmingham | 11,763 | 4,365 | 7,398 |
| Hackney | 11,499 | 8,501 | 2,998 |
| Manchester | 9,673 | 5,079 | 4,594 |
One shared address belongs to Companies House itself. Since March 2024 the registrar can move a company to a default address of its own when its stated office isn't appropriate, for example when post can't reach anyone (the registrar's powers are set out on GOV.UK). 28,740 live companies sat at one on 1 October 2026, 93% of them at a single postcode in Cardiff. Only 3,835 had filed dormant accounts. The rest filed other accounts or none at all, which makes the default address a story about missing addresses more than dormant companies.
Where dormant companies really are
The fairer count leaves shared offices out. Here we count only companies at ordinary addresses: postcodes holding fewer than 10 companies, which in practice means homes, small offices and the blocks of flats that come up further down. On that rule, Lambeth has the highest dormant share of any council area of 50,000 people or more, at 17.1%. Merthyr Tydfil has the lowest, at 6.0%.
| # | Council area | Nation | Companies | Dormant | Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lambeth | England | 13,590 | 2,329 | 17.1% |
| 2 | Hammersmith and Fulham | England | 8,132 | 1,326 | 16.3% |
| 3 | Camden | England | 12,026 | 1,924 | 16.0% |
| 4 | Kensington and Chelsea | England | 8,811 | 1,351 | 15.3% |
| 5 | Lewisham | England | 11,981 | 1,820 | 15.2% |
| 6 | Wandsworth | England | 14,403 | 2,176 | 15.1% |
| 7 | Islington | England | 9,436 | 1,420 | 15.0% |
| 8 | Haringey | England | 10,665 | 1,593 | 14.9% |
| 9 | Southwark | England | 13,651 | 1,986 | 14.5% |
| 10 | Greenwich | England | 12,375 | 1,777 | 14.4% |
| … | |||||
| 351 | Stockton-on-Tees | England | 6,025 | 423 | 7.0% |
| 352 | Angus | Scotland | 3,415 | 224 | 6.6% |
| 353 | Aberdeenshire | Scotland | 9,730 | 630 | 6.5% |
| 354 | North East Lincolnshire | England | 4,450 | 276 | 6.2% |
| 355 | Merthyr Tydfil | Wales | 1,428 | 85 | 6.0% |
Towns show the same pattern in finer grain. These are towns in England and Wales of 20,000 people or more, on the same ordinary-address rule.
| # | Town | County | Companies | Dormant share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ascot | Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead | 1,372 | 15.0% |
| 2 | Bexhill-on-Sea | East Sussex | 1,131 | 14.9% |
| 3 | Broadstairs | Kent | 915 | 13.8% |
| 4 | Egham | Surrey | 1,074 | 13.7% |
| 5 | Brighton | Brighton and Hove | 10,186 | 13.5% |
| 6 | Welwyn Garden City | Hertfordshire | 1,886 | 13.3% |
| 7 | Farnham | Surrey | 1,073 | 13.2% |
| 8 | Hastings | East Sussex | 2,564 | 12.9% |
| 9 | Southend-on-Sea | Southend-on-Sea | 5,610 | 12.9% |
| 10 | Redhill | Surrey | 1,299 | 12.9% |
| … | ||||
| 431 | Grimsby | North East Lincolnshire | 2,241 | 6.0% |
| 432 | Billingham | Stockton-on-Tees | 722 | 5.7% |
| 433 | Blyth | Northumberland | 892 | 5.5% |
| 434 | Cleethorpes | North East Lincolnshire | 725 | 5.2% |
| 435 | Merthyr Tydfil | Merthyr Tydfil County Borough | 991 | 5.1% |
The rule matters most for small places. Before we applied it, a town of 10,000 people could top the list because one local office kept 50 dormant companies on its books. The ordinary-address rule caps any single postcode at 9 companies, so no one address can carry a town.
Dearer towns, more dormant companies
The dormant share rises with house prices. Across 685 towns in England and Wales, the rank correlation between a town's median sale price and its dormant share is 0.61, where 1 would mean the two rise in perfect step. London isn't in this test, because the price data has no London towns.
The obvious suspect is property: people holding rental homes through companies. We tested it, and it doesn't explain much. Take every property company out of the count and the correlation is still 0.58. Dearer towns have more dormant companies outside property too, and the data can't say why.
The blocks of flats behind the numbers
Sort dormant companies by what they say they do, and one code stands apart. SIC 98000, "residents property management", covers 126,059 live companies. 43,979 of them are dormant: 34.9%.
Most are residents' management companies. The leaseholders of a block of flats use one to run the building together, each usually holding a share, and it arranges repairs, insurance and service charges (the Leasehold Advisory Service explains the set-up). About 1 in 3 of them files dormant accounts.
| SIC code | What the company says it does | Live companies | Dormant | Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 98000 | Residents property management | 126,059 | 43,979 | 34.9% |
| 68100 | Buying and selling of own real estate | 257,596 | 29,045 | 11.3% |
| 68209 | Other letting and operating of own or leased real estate | 282,672 | 25,145 | 8.9% |
| 74990 | Non-trading company | 39,597 | 23,165 | 58.5% |
| 82990 | Other business support service activities n.e.c. | 175,850 | 22,286 | 12.7% |
| 70229 | Management consultancy activities other than financial management | 220,200 | 19,551 | 8.9% |
| 47910 | Retail sale via mail order houses or via Internet | 164,171 | 15,749 | 9.6% |
| 96090 | Other service activities n.e.c. | 116,323 | 14,836 | 12.8% |
Landlords' companies come next: 29,045 dormant companies that buy and sell their own property, and 25,145 that let it. Letting agents barely feature. Real estate agencies, SIC 68310, account for 2,628 dormant companies out of 27,410. When a business directory lists a dormant property company as a letting agent, it has usually found a landlord's company.
The table leaves out the bare "Dormant Company" code, 99999, because it names no activity. 103,929 live companies use it, and 73,964 of those filed dormant accounts. The rest filed other accounts, or none yet.
Where the management companies are
Residents' management companies sit where flats do. Counting those at ordinary addresses, Camden has 4.26 for every 1,000 residents.
| # | Council area | Residents' management companies | Per 1,000 residents |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Camden | 922 | 4.26 |
| 2 | Kensington and Chelsea | 473 | 3.25 |
| 3 | Lambeth | 994 | 3.16 |
| 4 | Brighton and Hove | 837 | 2.95 |
| 5 | Westminster | 611 | 2.88 |
| 6 | Islington | 603 | 2.69 |
| 7 | Bristol, City of | 1,253 | 2.53 |
| 8 | Hammersmith and Fulham | 476 | 2.50 |
Scotland has very few: 0.12 per 1,000 residents, against 0.72 in England. Flats there are run on different lines. Owners share a tenement's common parts under their title deeds and the Tenement Management Scheme, often through a property factor, and the register shows far fewer blocks forming a company.
That looked like the reason Scottish council areas sit low in the dormant table: 23 of the 29 are in its bottom quarter. It explains very little. The typical Scottish council area has a dormant share of 8.3% against 10.4% in England, and with management companies taken out of both, the figures are 8.3% and 10.0%. Most of the gap stays.
Method: the Companies House Free Company Data Product snapshot of 1 October 2026, live companies only (status Active, including those with a strike-off proposal). Dormant means the company's last accounts were filed as dormant accounts. Companies are placed by registered-office postcode through the ONS Postcode Directory: 98.1% could be placed. Sector is each company's first SIC code. Towns are ONS 2022 built-up areas in England and Wales, reached through Census 2021 output areas. Council populations are the latest ONS, NRS and NISRA mid-year estimates; town populations are Census 2021. The price test uses Land Registry median sale prices for the latest 12 months and Spearman's rank correlation, on towns of 10,000+ people with 300+ companies at ordinary addresses. We publish counts by place and never list companies.