It’s not company founding that has stopped, but risk-taking – this is what the 2025 data shows

In 2025, 22.4 thousand new businesses were established in Hungary, which represents a 7.5 percent decrease compared to 2024. Terminations also significantly contributed to the decline, exceeding 33 thousand, thus narrowing the active company stock.

The decrease is not uniform, especially those company foundings where the ownership and management circle consisted entirely of new players fell. While three years earlier, more than 7,100 such businesses were started, by 2025 their number had decreased to 5,356.

This represents a decline of almost 25 percent, meaning that the number of new entrants decreased much faster than the number of company foundings themselves, and starting a business increasingly became the domain of existing players.

This is clearly demonstrated by the fact that between 2022 and 2025, the number of new businesses decreased in all categories where new players appeared, while companies where at least one experienced owner or managing director was present represented a permanently higher proportion of new foundations.

Reducing risk-taking rearranges the business landscape

When fewer new players enter the market, the question inevitably becomes more important: how the ownership concentration of businesses, and how much weight is given to the players already present?

According to OPTEN data, in 2025, more than half of newly founded businesses had at least one owner or manager who was already present in the business world. Entrepreneurial activity has therefore not disappeared, but is increasingly taking place within existing business circles.

In parallel, on the side of company accumulation, it is not the strengthening of concentration, but waiting that has become decisive. Examining the ultimate ownership networks, the number of individuals associated with many businesses decreased in 2025: the circle of ultimate owners controlling 6–10, 11–50, and more than 50 companies all narrowed, by a total of nearly 350 people compared to the base of approximately 10.5 thousand in 2024.

The strategy of experienced players in 2025 was no longer determined by growth expansion, but by maintaining position.

At the same time, new businesses continue to be primarily associated with younger generations, with Generation Y and subsequent generations together accounting for nearly 60 percent of new foundings. Their more restrained activity is therefore not a generational issue, but a clear economic signal, many people feel the risks of starting a business in the current environment are too high.

“Based on the 2025 data, the entrepreneurial environment was not determined by growth expansion, but by a more conscious consideration of risks,” said Csaba Alföldi, company information expert at OPTEN.