Japan’s Business Failures in December 2024
(Released by TEIKOKU DATABANK, LTD.)
Number of bankruptcies reaches 848, exceeding that of the same month of the previous year for 32 consecutive months
Record longest period of continuous increase
| Bankruptcies |
848 |
| Year-to-Year basis |
+5.2％ |
| Last Year same month |
806 |
| Liabilities |
210,076 million yen |
| Year-to-Year basis |
+107.0％ |
| Last Year same month |
101,504 million yen |
Highlight and Outstanding Feature
- ■There were 848 bankruptcies (806 in the same month of the previous year, up 5.2%). The number increased year-on-year for 32 consecutive months and it became the longest continuous increase period ever, exceeding October 1990 to April 1993 (31 months).
- ■Total liabilities were 210,076 million yen (101,504 million yen in the previous year, up 107.0%), the second-highest amount in 2024 due to several large-scale bankruptcies of companies with liabilities exceeding 5 billion yen. BALM Co., Ltd. (formerly BIGMOTOR Co., Ltd.), which operated used car dealerships, topped the list of liabilities with 83.1 billion yen.
- ■By industry, the number of bankruptcies increased year-on-year in four of seven industries. The service industry had the highest number of bankruptcies (to 215 from 220, down 2.3% from the same month of the previous year), with the figure falling below the same month of the previous year for the first time in 34 months (since February 2022).
- ■In terms of primary cause, recession-induced bankruptcies numbered 710, marking 32 consecutive months of year-on-year increase.
- ■By type of bankruptcy, the number of liquidation-type bankruptcies totaled 824, accounting for 97.2% of the total.
- ■By size of liabilities, bankruptcies of companies with liabilities of less than 50 million yen were the most common (511 cases). There were 617 bankruptcies with capital of “individual + less than 10 million yen,” accounting for 72.8% of the total.
- ■By business history, the number of bankruptcies of start-ups was 262, exceeding 200 for the fifteenth consecutive month.
- ■By region, six of nine regions experienced year-on-year increases. Kinki (to 231 from 204 bankruptcies in the same month last year, up 13.2%) exceeded the same month last year for 27 consecutive months. In Shikoku, the number of bankruptcies rose (to 23 from 16, up 43.8%), marking the first time in 16 years since 2008 (21 cases) that the number of cases in December exceeded 20.
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