Every quarter, a few thousand companies are set up in Kent and Medway and a few thousand are dissolved. For most of the last three years more were set up than closed, but the gap has narrowed. In three quarters out of 12, the county ended with fewer companies than it started with.
The net gain in Kent and Medway companies fell from 4,366 to 937 a year
- Year to September 20244,366
- Year to September 20251,730
- Year to September 2026937
Quarter by quarter
Births slipped from 18,530 to 17,048 a year, while dissolutions rose from 14,164 to 16,111. Insolvencies, companies that went into a creditors' voluntary liquidation, a compulsory liquidation or administration, barely moved, from 705 to 710 and then 674 a year. More companies are set up each January to March than in any other quarter, so compare a quarter with the same quarter a year before.
| Quarter | Set up | Dissolved | Net change | Insolvent | Solvent liquidations |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| July to September 2026 | 4,370 | 4,665 | −295 | 175 | 26 |
| April to June 2026 | 4,164 | 3,572 | +592 | 191 | 42 |
| January to March 2026 | 4,617 | 4,120 | +497 | 140 | 62 |
| October to December 2025 | 3,897 | 3,754 | +143 | 168 | 64 |
| July to September 2025 | 4,574 | 4,716 | −142 | 176 | 25 |
| April to June 2025 | 4,431 | 3,682 | +749 | 199 | 44 |
| January to March 2025 | 4,822 | 3,302 | +1,520 | 166 | 77 |
| October to December 2024 | 3,858 | 4,255 | −397 | 169 | 133 |
| July to September 2024 | 4,070 | 3,631 | +439 | 168 | 78 |
| April to June 2024 | 4,648 | 3,571 | +1,077 | 206 | 62 |
| January to March 2024 | 5,344 | 3,456 | +1,888 | 155 | 51 |
| October to December 2023 | 4,468 | 3,506 | +962 | 176 | 55 |
Solvent liquidations, where a company that can pay its debts is wound up by a liquidator and its money is paid out to its owners, peaked at 133 in October to December 2024, the quarter of the October 2024 Budget, which raised Capital Gains Tax and set the rate on Business Asset Disposal Relief to rise from April 2025, so some owners wound up before then (how that tax has changed since 2008). In July to September 2026 there were 26. Most owners who close a solvent company use a cheaper strike-off instead, which our study of Kent closures looks at in detail.
Where in Kent
Over the last four quarters, Gravesham had the most new companies for its size, 146 for every 1,000 live companies, and Tonbridge and Malling the fewest, 95. Dover, Maidstone, Folkestone and Hythe and Tunbridge Wells ended the year with fewer companies than they started with. Canterbury had the most insolvencies for its size, though the numbers in each district are small enough to move a lot from one year to the next.
| District | Live companies | Set up per 1,000 | Dissolved per 1,000 | Net change | Insolvent |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ashford | 10,965 | 107 | 105 | +25 | 55 |
| Canterbury | 10,342 | 123 | 103 | +207 | 76 |
| Dartford | 12,446 | 135 | 124 | +141 | 70 |
| Dover | 6,043 | 107 | 133 | −154 | 25 |
| Folkestone and Hythe | 6,882 | 123 | 131 | −61 | 24 |
| Gravesham | 8,839 | 146 | 123 | +208 | 35 |
| Maidstone | 14,038 | 114 | 121 | −102 | 71 |
| Medway | 19,850 | 138 | 126 | +237 | 86 |
| Sevenoaks | 13,205 | 103 | 91 | +162 | 65 |
| Swale | 8,179 | 123 | 110 | +106 | 27 |
| Thanet | 8,808 | 134 | 125 | +83 | 56 |
| Tonbridge and Malling | 12,308 | 95 | 88 | +94 | 55 |
| Tunbridge Wells | 10,560 | 102 | 102 | −9 | 29 |
October 2025 to September 2026. Live companies at the start of the period; rates are for the whole year. Source: Companies House and The Gazette.
Why we count insolvencies by district
The Insolvency Service publishes company insolvencies every month for England and Wales as a whole. It doesn't publish them by district, and its yearly study of business insolvency goes only as far as region. A district count is hard to do from the register alone, because once a company is in liquidation the address on its record is usually its liquidator's. So we take each insolvency notice in The Gazette, match it to the company, and place the company by the registered office it had before the notice appeared. A company set up and put into liquidation in the same quarter isn't counted. We haven't seen a district count published anywhere else.
How we worked out the figures
Kent means the 12 Kent County Council districts and Medway, matched by the postcode of each company's registered office. Births are companies incorporated in a quarter, taken from Companies House's company data file for the first day of the next quarter, so a company set up and dissolved within the same quarter is missed. Dissolutions are companies dissolved in the quarter, placed by their registered office when dissolved. Insolvencies are companies with a Gazette notice of a winding-up order, a resolution for a creditors' voluntary liquidation or the appointment of an administrator in the quarter, each company counted once for each kind of procedure; solvent liquidations are resolutions for a members' voluntary liquidation. We match notices by company number, or by name where the notice gives no number or the number isn't in the file. October to December 2023 uses the file for 1 November, as the 1 October and 1 December files aren't available.
These are counts of limited companies, not of all businesses, and the registered office isn't always where a company trades. A company can also move its office into or out of Kent, which is why the number of live companies doesn't move exactly with births less dissolutions.