Quarterly CRO data briefing
Irish Company Formation Report — Q2 2026
Irish company formations reached 7,616 in the second quarter, an 11.3% increase from Q2 2025. Dublin added the most registrations, while Offaly recorded the fastest percentage growth among counties with at least 50 formations a year earlier.
Key findings
7,616
Q2 formations (+11.3% YoY)
+1.8%
Formation change vs Q1 2026
3,060
Q2 dissolutions (-9.7% QoQ)
+67.1%
Dissolution change vs Q2 2025
The dissolution series counts records by the CRO’s comp_dissolved_date. It includes dissolutions recorded after different legal processes and should not be read as a count of a single strike-off procedure. The current CRO snapshot also contained 4,536 companies with “Strike Off Listed” status.
Formation trend
The strongest quarter in the five-quarter series
Q2 2026 finished 133 registrations above Q1 and 774 above the same quarter in 2025. June was the strongest month, with 2,891 formations—38% of the quarter’s total.
| Quarter | Formations | Dissolutions |
|---|---|---|
| Q2 2025 | 6,842 | 1,831 |
| Q3 2025 | 6,990 | 2,483 |
| Q4 2025 | 6,210 | 2,220 |
| Q1 2026 | 7,483 | 3,388 |
| Q2 2026 | 7,616 | 3,060 |
County findings
New incorporations by county
Dublin accounted for 3,404 registrations, or 44.7% of county-matched formations. The fastest-growth ranking applies a 50-formation Q2 2025 floor to reduce distortions from very small bases.
#1
Offaly
+39.2%
110 vs 79
#2
Louth
+33.3%
220 vs 165
#3
Wicklow
+31.3%
197 vs 150
#4
Limerick
+25.8%
273 vs 217
#5
Galway
+25.7%
352 vs 280
| County | Q2 2026 | Q2 2025 | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dublin | 3,404 | 2,924 | +16.4% |
| Cork | 708 | 640 | +10.6% |
| Galway | 352 | 280 | +25.7% |
| Kildare | 294 | 306 | -3.9% |
| Meath | 289 | 254 | +13.8% |
| Limerick | 273 | 217 | +25.8% |
| Louth | 220 | 165 | +33.3% |
| Wicklow | 197 | 150 | +31.3% |
| Donegal | 173 | 163 | +6.1% |
| Wexford | 172 | 152 | +13.2% |
| Clare | 165 | 179 | -7.8% |
| Tipperary | 163 | 162 | +0.6% |
| Westmeath | 153 | 147 | +4.1% |
| Kerry | 150 | 145 | +3.4% |
| Waterford | 128 | 124 | +3.2% |
| Mayo | 111 | 123 | -9.8% |
| Offaly | 110 | 79 | +39.2% |
| Kilkenny | 100 | 91 | +9.9% |
| Laois | 91 | 99 | -8.1% |
| Monaghan | 67 | 67 | +0.0% |
| Cavan | 65 | 96 | -32.3% |
| Carlow | 56 | 69 | -18.8% |
| Roscommon | 54 | 68 | -20.6% |
| Sligo | 46 | 50 | -8.0% |
| Longford | 38 | 51 | -25.5% |
| Leitrim | 30 | 35 | -14.3% |
Business survival proxy
How many companies still hold a normal register status?
For three incorporation cohorts, we measured the share currently marked “Normal” in the CRO snapshot. This is a register-status retention measure, not a business survival rate: a normal status does not prove that a company is trading, employing people or financially healthy.
2011 cohort
40.3%
5,943 of 14,765 currently Normal
2016 cohort
57.5%
12,110 of 21,047 currently Normal
2021 cohort
84.2%
21,625 of 25,692 currently Normal
Download and cite
Reusable tables for reporting and research
Suggested citation
Businesses.ie (2026), “Irish Company Formation Report — Q2 2026”, published 21 July 2026. Source data: Companies Registration Office Company Records.
Methodology and limitations
How this report was produced
We queried the CRO Company Records daily snapshot on 21 July 2026. Formations use company_reg_date; dissolutions use comp_dissolved_date; cohort classifications use the status shown in that snapshot. Quarter boundaries are calendar quarters and comparisons are not seasonally adjusted.
County is inferred from the four registered-address fields using exact county-name matching. Seven of 7,616 Q2 2026 records and six of 6,842 Q2 2025 records could not be assigned, so county figures sum to the matched total rather than the national total. Addresses are registered offices and do not necessarily represent where economic activity occurs.
The underlying CRO Company Records dataset is a daily snapshot published under CC BY 4.0. Contains Irish Public Sector Data licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.
Figures may be revised when CRO records are corrected or updated. This analysis is independent and is not an official CRO statistical release. Read the editorial and data methodology, or contact us for the query notes behind a figure.