Lighting the windows…
The UK company register, 2016–2026
Romanian companies in Britain: two waves, and how few remain
People of Romanian nationality were named as owners of 200,445 new British companies between July 2016 and September 2026, more than any other foreign nationality in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2022. About a quarter came in two waves, in 2020 and in 2021–22, and only 16.2% of those are still on the register, against 32–37% of all companies formed in the same months.
Each window below is a group of these companies, lit while they are still on the register: 70,835 are.
Scroll for the story, orFind your councilBritain’s new companies
In 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2022, more new companies had a Romanian owner than an owner of any other foreign nationality#
Of the companies formed since 2016 whose owner was named within 60 days of formation, about 68% had only British owners. Among the other nationalities, as written in the register, “Romanian” came first in four years: 14,119 companies in 2018, 15,639 in 2019, 24,820 in 2020 and 34,274 in 2022. Over the whole period Romanian and Pakistani owners are level, at nearly 200,000 companies each, ahead of Indian and Chinese owners.
Matched by name and month of birth, they are about 173,546 people. 84% of them appear in a single company, and 97% declared that they live in the UK.
July 2016 to April 2020
Four steady years#
Scroll, and the street fills month by month. Until the spring of 2020 about one new company in forty had a Romanian owner: 2.2% to 2.9% a month in 2019. Freight by road and the construction of houses and other buildings were the commonest trades.
These companies are still on the register in about the same proportion as everyone else’s. Of the 51,106 formed before May 2020, 35.3% are still there; of all companies formed in the same months with a named owner, 36.3%.
May to November 2020
In May 2020 the share almost doubled overnight#
Share of new companies with a Romanian owner April 20202.2%May 20203.8%In April 2020, the first full month of lockdown, 2.2% of new companies had a Romanian owner. In May it was 3.8%, and it stayed near 4% until November. 18,818 companies were formed in those seven months.
Then it fell back, to about 2.4% for most of 2021.
September 2021 to July 2022
The biggest wave came in 2022#
5.9%of new companies in June 2022 had a Romanian owner: 3,719 in one month.From September 2021 the share rose again, month after month, to its peak in June 2022, the most companies with a Romanian owner in any month before or since. 29,173 were formed in the eleven months of this wave.
October 2022 to today
Then the lights went out#
Still on the register today 2020 wave, Romanian owner16.2%all companies, same months31.8%2021–22 wave, Romanian owner16.2%all companies, same months37.0%since Aug 2022, Romanian owner47.8%all companies, same months65.0%Companies leave the register when they are dissolved: closed by their owners, or struck off when they stop filing accounts. Of the companies formed before May 2020, the Romanian-owned ones are still there about as often as everyone’s. Of each wave, about one in six is left, roughly half the share among all companies formed in the same months. Companies formed since August 2022 also have a smaller share still on the register.
At the same age
Three years after they were formed#
On the register in the first copy after their third anniversary formed 2019, Romanian owner55.8%formed 2019, all companies59.3%formed 2022, Romanian owner19.6%formed 2022, all companies44.1%Younger companies have had less time to close, so these figures compare companies at about the same age: each is read in the first copy of the register after its third anniversary. Of the companies formed in 2019, the Romanian-owned ones were almost as likely as everyone’s to be there. Of those formed in 2022, 19.6% were, against 44.1%.
Other nationalities
Romanian owners were not the only ones#
Formed 2022, on the register in the first copy after three years, by owner’s nationality Pakistani16.3%Romanian19.6%Chinese26.4%Polish44.8%all companies44.1%The register shows similar rises for other nationalities in the same years. Companies with a Chinese owner went from about 1% of new companies in 2020 to 6.1% in the last quarter of 2021; those with a Pakistani owner from under 1% in 2019 to about 5% in the last quarter of 2023. Their companies of 2022, too, were far less often on the register in the first copy after their third anniversary than everyone’s.
Polish owners show no such wave, and their companies of 2022 were on the register in the first copy after their third anniversary about as often as everyone’s.
What the register cannot tell
Why the waves came, the register does not say#
It records who filed what, not why, and the sources found do not settle it. Some explanations fit poorly. The pandemic’s Bounce Back Loans were only for businesses already trading on 1 March 2020, so a new company formed in May 2020 was not eligible; whether any of these companies applied, the register does not show. The mini umbrella company fraud that HMRC warns about often lists foreign nationals as directors, and in the cases the BBC reported in 2021 directors from the Philippines were appointed after the companies had been set up. Here a Romanian owner was named within 60 days of formation, and almost all declared that they live in Britain; whether any of these companies were run in such a scheme, the register cannot show.
One change fits the timing of the second wave without proving anything: the shortage of lorry drivers in the autumn of 2021. Since December 2022 HMRC has also warned that in building, workers may be paid through their own limited companies set up in labour supply chains. No source found links any of this to Romanian owners in particular.
What the data does show: many different people, almost all declaring that they live in the UK, most of them named in a single company, in the same trades as before the waves; and most of these companies had left the register within about three years.
What the companies did
Lorries, houses and cleaning#
Now the colour is the trade, and a window still lit is filled, one that has gone dark is only an outline. The street shows the same few jobs from start to end. 28.1% of the companies were in building and construction, 21.9% in haulage, delivery and storage, 6.0% in cleaning and other services to buildings. The commonest single trade, freight transport by road, covers 16.5% of all.
Cleaning companies have the smallest share still on the register: 19.9%, against 39.4% in haulage and 35.9% in building. In the 2022 wave building rose to 33.3% of the companies and cleaning to 10.1%.
Registered offices
Where the companies are registered#
Each disc on the map is a council: its area is the number of companies with a Romanian owner registered there, its lit core the part still on the register. The most are in Birmingham, Newham, Harrow, West Northamptonshire and Redbridge.
A registered office is an address for letters, which can be an accountant’s or a virtual office, not where the work is done. In most councils the map broadly agrees with the census of 2021 (see how this was measured); the biggest misses are in central London. In Hackney, the companies on the register in February 2021 came to 892 for every thousand residents with a Romanian passport at the census that March, against 116 across England and Wales.
The companies in your council#
Type a council, a town or a postcode, or tap the map. The counts are of companies with a Romanian owner whose registered office was in that council in the first copy of the register after they were formed. A number under 10 shows only as “fewer than 10”.
No council or town by that name. Try the council’s name as on a council tax bill.
Before 2016: the years the register cannot see#
Owners have been named on the register only since 2016. A company that closed before then never had one, so the register cannot count the Romanian companies of 2007 to 2015, when Romania had just joined the European Union.
Those years had their own rules. From 1 January 2007 to 31 December 2013 most Romanians needed permission, usually an accession worker card, to work in Britain as employees; some were exempt, for example after twelve months of authorised work. Genuine self-employment needed no permission (Home Office guidance). The restrictions were extended in 2011 and lifted on 1 January 2014. Many worked as self-employed. Sole traders, the simplest form of self-employment, are not on the company register at all.
Outside counts give some sense of scale. A 2014 report by the Centre for Entrepreneurs and DueDil found 10,931 Romanian founder-directors running 10,693 companies, 3,341 of them in London and 915 in Harrow. The Labour Force Survey for January to March 2016 estimated 44,207 self-employed people born in Romania, a survey figure with a margin of error (ONS). The 2021 census counted 110,828 self-employed people with a Romanian passport in England and Wales, not counting full-time students, 16,216 of them employing others.
How this was measured#
The owners. Companies House publishes a daily snapshot of people with significant control: people who own more than a quarter of a company or control it in other ways, for example by appointing its directors, with the nationality they declared, including companies that have closed. This page calls them owners. This page uses the snapshot of 18 October 2026: 13,978,905 records of individuals. A company counts as Romanian-owned if a person of Romanian nationality, alone or with another, was named as one within 60 days of its formation, from 1 July 2016 to 30 September 2026 (the last weeks are provisional). Owners that are themselves companies, and directors who are not persons with significant control, are not counted. Comparisons with “all companies” mean all companies with an individual owner named in the same way.
The dates. Company numbers are given out in order, so a closed company is dated from its number, read against the live register. Tried on live companies left out of the fit, the date is right to within 4 days for nine in ten; closed companies are dated the same way.
Still on the register. The live company register of 1 October 2026, and 16 earlier copies of it saved by the Internet Archive from June 2018 on, show which companies were on the register when. A company’s trade and registered office come from the first copy in which it appears. Between two copies the lights go out at an even pace: the month a company actually closed is not shown. Three-year figures read each company in the first copy made after its third anniversary, on average 102 days later, and start with 2017, because copies are more than a year apart before 2020.
Checks. Companies with an individual owner named within 60 days of formation are 95% of the official count of new companies (Companies House statistics) from 2020–21 on; the rest are owned by other companies or name no owner. For 2017–18 the figure is 86%, so some older closed companies are probably missing. Nationality is what the owner declared and can change: of the Romanian owners in the snapshot of January 2023 whose companies are still live, 95.0% still say Romanian, 1.8% now say British only. Founders of Romanian origin recorded only as British are not found by this method, as the ACORD UK and Bournemouth University report points out; those recorded as both British and Romanian are counted. The map was checked against the census of March 2021: in the 139 councils of England and Wales with at least 1,000 residents holding a Romanian passport, the Romanian-owned companies on the register that February were, in half of them, within a factor of 1.26 of what their residents would suggest, and in 7 in ten within a factor of 1.5 (correlation 0.86 on a log scale).
What is hidden. Every number for a council, trade or year that is under 10 is shown as “fewer than 10”, and where one hidden year could be worked out from a total, a second is hidden. No company, person or postcode is shown.
| Year | Romanian-owned companies | Share of new companies | Rank among foreign nationalities | On the register after 3 years* | All companies, after 3 years* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 5,461 | 2.1% | 2 | – | – |
| 2017 | 11,117 | 2.1% | 2 | 45.9% | 56.0% |
| 2018 | 14,256 | 2.4% | 1 | 50.7% | 57.1% |
| 2019 | 15,785 | 2.5% | 1 | 55.8% | 59.3% |
| 2020 | 24,998 | 3.4% | 1 | 33.0% | 50.3% |
| 2021 | 19,646 | 2.7% | 3 | 32.2% | 47.9% |
| 2022 | 34,475 | 4.6% | 1 | 19.6% | 44.1% |
| 2023 | 27,827 | 3.3% | 3 | – | – |
| 2024 | 19,589 | 2.5% | 4 | – | – |
| 2025 | 15,896 | 2.0% | 5 | – | – |
| 2026 | 11,395 | 2.0% | 4 | – | – |
| Trade (SIC code) | Companies | Share | Still on the register |
|---|---|---|---|
| Freight transport by road (49410) | 33,089 | 16.5% | 41.9% |
| Construction of domestic buildings (41202) | 16,886 | 8.4% | 24.6% |
| Construction of commercial buildings (41201) | 15,488 | 7.7% | 34.0% |
| General cleaning of buildings (81210) | 6,453 | 3.2% | 18.7% |
| Other specialised construction activities n.e.c. (43999) | 5,868 | 2.9% | 47.6% |
| Retail sale via mail order houses or via Internet (47910) | 4,948 | 2.5% | 39.1% |
| Other transportation support activities (52290) | 3,779 | 1.9% | 30.1% |
| Unlicensed carrier (53202) | 3,568 | 1.8% | 38.5% |
| Other business support service activities n.e.c. (82990) | 3,401 | 1.7% | 31.2% |
| Other service activities n.e.c. (96090) | 3,260 | 1.6% | 32.2% |
| Sale of used cars and light motor vehicles (45112) | 3,114 | 1.6% | 29.9% |
| Hairdressing and other beauty treatment (96020) | 3,007 | 1.5% | 29.8% |
What this page does not claim#
That leaving the register means failure: companies are dissolved for many reasons, including owners who move to another company, retire or return home. That the waves were fraud, or were not: the register cannot tell, and no source found says. That these are all the Romanian businesses in Britain: sole traders, ordinary partnerships and companies whose owners are recorded only as British are not counted.
For the community behind these numbers, from Dacian soldiers on Hadrian’s Wall to the 2021 census, see Britain and Romania in twelve stops. For pupils in England’s schools whose first language is Romanian, council by council, see Romanian in England’s classrooms.
Sources#
- Companies House, People with significant control snapshot, 18 October 2026; archived snapshot of 15 January 2023. Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Companies House, Free Company Data Product, 1 October 2026, and 16 archived copies, June 2018 to June 2026, from the Internet Archive.
- Companies House, Companies register activities, April 2024 to March 2025, table A1 (incorporations).
- Companies House, condensed SIC 2007 list.
- ONS, Census 2021: passports held by council and by economic activity (create a custom dataset); ONS Geography: postcode to council lookup, May 2026, and council boundaries, May 2025. Source: Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2025.
- ONS, Country of birth by employment status in main job, January to March 2016 (ad hoc 005760).
- Centre for Entrepreneurs and DueDil, Migrant Entrepreneurs: Building Our Businesses, Creating Our Jobs, March 2014, pages 28 and 37.
- ACORD UK and Bournemouth University, The Romanian Diaspora’s Contributions to the British Economy and Society, 2026, pages 32–37.
- The Accession (Immigration and Worker Authorisation) Regulations 2006; amendment of 2011; Home Office, notice 12/2013; Home Office, Qualified persons, 2023, page 63.
- HM Treasury and British Business Bank, Apply for a Bounce Back Loan; National Audit Office, Investigation into the Bounce Back Loan Scheme, October 2020, page 14.
- HMRC, Mini umbrella company fraud; HMRC, Check for signs of labour fraud in construction; BBC News, 10 May 2021; Department for Transport, HGV driver shortage letter, September 2021.
- Archived copies of the register used (dataset date; some were captured later): 2018-06-01, 2020-05-01, 2021-02-01, 2021-10-01, 2022-01-01, 2022-03-01, 2022-10-12, 2022-12-01, 2023-01-01, 2023-08-01, 2024-01-01, 2024-05-01, 2025-02-01, 2025-03-01, 2026-01-01, 2026-06-01.