Founding Report May: In the Shadow of the Last Month
In May 2024, there were 4460 start-ups across Switzerland, which was a decrease of 2.69% compared to the strong April. Despite this month-on-month downturn, an increase of 4.28% was achieved compared to May 2023.
2024 vs. 2023
In the current calendar year, there were 22,509 new start-ups in Switzerland from January to May, while 21,601 were counted last year. As a result, 4.30% more new companies were founded in 2024 than last year.
Strong northwestern Switzerland
In May, almost all regions recorded a decrease compared to the previous month and only northwestern Switzerland shone with an increase of 0.30% due to the 998 company start-ups. Compared to the previous year, it was even able to show 7.66% more commercial register entries. Bern was the canton with the highest number of start-ups in this region, with an increase of 3.07% compared to the previous month and a total of 369 commercial register entries.
In eastern Switzerland, too, there was only a slight change compared to April. This was -0.72% and the region counted 554 start-ups in May. Compared to May of last year, this corresponds to an increase of 3.75 percentage points.
Profits and losses go hand in hand
In French-speaking Switzerland, the picture was mixed this month, as the region was able to increase by 4.15% year-on-year but lagged the previous month by 4.34 percentage points. The largest share of the 1279 start-ups was accounted for by Vaud, which had 480 commercial register entries at the end of the month.
Ticino lost 8.72% month-on-month and achieved a result of 199 start-ups in May 2024, an increase of 9.34% compared to the previous year.
A similar pattern was also seen in Central Switzerland. With 649 commercial register entries, there was a difference of -3.71 compared to April and a change of +4.34 compared to May 2023. The canton achieved 213 entries in the commercial register, with this result representing an increase of 23.12% compared to April. Lucerne also showed strength in a year-on-year comparison, surpassing May 2023 by 17.03%.
Zurich lags behind
In May, Zurich was the only region to record a month-on-month and year-on-year decline. In total, there were 781 start-ups, which corresponded to a decrease of 4.05% compared to April 2024. The difference from May 2023 was less striking and was -0.38%.
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After a surprisingly strong April, there was a slight decrease in company start-ups in May. However, the 4460 start-ups corresponded to an increase of 4.28 percentage points compared to May 2023. June has been one of the months with the highest number of start-ups in recent years and therefore a further increase is expected for June 2024.
