![\"\"](\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Liquidations-May-2026.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nBusinesses in South Africa under pressure<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The latest data from Stats SA builds on the revisions made in the data release for April, where the stats body completely overhauled its tracking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stats SA worked with the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) to review its data, where several issues were picked up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This includes duplicate entries and data extraction challenges in previously submitted aggregated data. These resulted in the omission and duplication of certain records.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because of this, Stats SA said that significant revisions have been made to its historical liquidations data, which paints a very different picture of the health of South Africa’s business landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most notably, it reveals that, contrary to the story before the revisions, liquidations in South Africa as significantly worse than previously thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Fluxmans business rescue and insolvency expert, Craig Blumenthal, the revised data reflects the ‘real world’ experience that many in the industry had been witnessing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “There has been extreme economic pressure in the market since 2020, and this pressure is now reflected far more accurately,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The day-to-day sentiment in business hasn\u2019t been particularly bullish in general, and this was simply not reflected in the data up until now.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Blumenthal had previously noted that liquidation data was only a single point of reference and could be interpreted in many ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For example, fewer liquidations could either indicate fewer insolvencies (positive) or simply fewer businesses around to be liquidated (negative).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Conversely, a higher number of liquidations could point to more insolvencies (negative) or increased business activity, where assets are liquidated for business transactions (positive).<\/p>\n\n\n\n With the revisions, Blumenthal said that the assumption that there were fewer companies to liquidate is evidently not the case, as the numbers have shot up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This leaves the causes of the closures open to interpretation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The business environment is constantly shifting and ebbs and flows depending on many conditions…it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to properly aggregate very specific data in relation to, for example, the causes of these liquidations, as there could be any number of reasons,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “They may be the result of a domino-like effect down the supply chain, it may be due to immigration, the various wars being fought, political pandering or any number of other factors.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ultimately, however, he said the partnership between Stats SA and CIPC is a step in the right direction in better understanding the health of business operations in the country\u2014despite the limited scope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n South Africa has seen over 1,000 businesses and companies liquidated in 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":818533,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[22135,1809],"class_list":["post-864890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-liquidations","tag-stats-sa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=864890"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":864905,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864890\/revisions\/864905"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/818533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=864890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=864890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=864890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Total Liquidations<\/th> Old Data<\/th> Revised Data<\/th> Change<\/th><\/tr><\/thead> 2020<\/td> 2,035<\/td> 2,147<\/td> +5.5%<\/td><\/tr> 2021<\/td> 1,932<\/td> 2,232<\/td> +15.5%<\/td><\/tr> 2022<\/td> 1,907<\/td> 2,311<\/td> +21.2%<\/td><\/tr> 2023<\/td> 1,657<\/td> 2,501<\/td> +50.9%<\/td><\/tr> 2024<\/td> 1,551<\/td> 2,626<\/td> +69.3%<\/td><\/tr> 2025<\/td> 1,534<\/td> 2,904<\/td> +89.3%<\/td><\/tr> 2026 (to March)<\/td> 377<\/td> 658<\/td> +74.5%<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n <\/a>