Freight: Insolvency
(asked on 3rd February 2026) - View Source
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what estimate he has made of the number of business insolvencies in the UK road haulage sector in each of the past 20 years.
Answered by
Blair McDougall
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
There has been a change to industry classifications during this time period, but the statistics are broadly comparable. Estimated numbers of companies in the relevant Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes that entered insolvency in the UK between 2006 and 2025 are presented below.
Number of companies entering insolvency in the Freight Transport by Road industry, United Kingdom, 2006 to 2025 | |
Calendar Year | Companies Entering Insolvency (SIC 2007 Code 49410 – Freight Transport by Road and SIC 2003 Code 6024 - Freight Transport by Road) |
2006 | 361 |
2007 | 308 |
2008 | 412 |
2009 | 442 |
2010 | 331 |
2011 | 351 |
2012 | 303 |
2013 | 265 |
2014 | 202 |
2015 | 160 |
2016 | 146 |
2017 [note 1] | 195 |
2018 [note 1] | 247 |
2019 | 285 |
2020 | 195 |
2021 | 265 |
2022 | 411 |
2023 | 503 |
2024 | 471 |
2025 | 401 |
Note 1: Numbers exclude bulk insolvencies, which occurred between April 2016 and early 2019 following changes to the IR35 rules and changes in VAT flat rate. If included, the number for 2017 would be 326 and the number for 2018 would be 256. For more details, see the Glossary in Company insolvencies, December 2025 - GOV.UK