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20% of company accounts filed on 31 July were in deficit
23,430 sets of company accounts were filed with Companies House on 31 July 2026. This is what they show.
The share of companies filing accounts that do not balance rose above its recent run rate on 31 July 2026. Of the 23,168 sets of accounts delivered to Companies House that day, 4,567 showed liabilities larger than assets, or 20 per cent, against an average of 17 per cent across the days we have measured.
Key points
- 23,430 sets of accounts were filed with Companies House on 31 July 2026.
- 4,567 of them, 20 per cent, reported net liabilities rather than net assets.
- 7,440 filings showed a weaker position than the prior year, against 12,665 that improved.
- The filings cover 107,086 employees between them.
- Book publishing had the highest share in deficit at 41 per cent of 34 filings.
What happened
Companies House publishes every set of accounts filed with it as open data on the day it is received. On 31 July 2026 that amounted to 23,430 filings, of which 23,168 carried a balance sheet figure we could read. Those are the accounts this report covers.
Of them, 4,567 reported net liabilities: the company owed more than it owned at its balance sheet date. That is 20 per cent.
The numbers
Every set of accounts carries the prior year alongside the current one, so each filing shows its own direction of travel. On 31 July 2026, 7,440 filings were weaker than a year earlier and 12,665 were stronger, meaning 37 per cent of those with a comparable prior year went backwards. That is above the 17 per cent average across the days measured so far.
Who filed most
| Industry | Filings | In deficit |
|---|---|---|
| Other letting and operating of own or leased real estate | 1,408 | 26% |
| Buying and selling of own real estate | 1,236 | 31% |
| Management consultancy activities other than financial management | 928 | 18% |
| Other business support service activities n.e.c. | 835 | 18% |
| Information technology consultancy activities | 623 | 15% |
| Development of building projects | 562 | 27% |
Where the deficits are concentrated
Ranked by the share of filings reporting net liabilities, among industries with at least 30 filings that day.
| Industry | Filings | In deficit |
|---|---|---|
| Book publishing | 34 | 41% |
| Other holiday and other collective accommodation | 64 | 36% |
| General cleaning of buildings | 58 | 34% |
| Retail sale of sports goods, fishing gear, camping goods, boats and bicycles | 33 | 33% |
| Support activities to performing arts | 37 | 32% |
| Other research and experimental development on natural sciences and engineering | 31 | 32% |
By registered office
Towns with at least 20 filings that day. A registered office is an address for service and not necessarily where a business trades, so this is a weaker signal than the industry split.
| Town | Filings | In deficit |
|---|---|---|
| Leamington Spa | 27 | 52% |
| Newark | 20 | 40% |
| Sale | 22 | 36% |
| Telford | 28 | 36% |
| Wimborne | 31 | 35% |
What this does and does not mean
Net liabilities are not the same thing as insolvency. A company funded by its parent, or by a director loan, or one that is early in its life and still carrying losses forward, can report negative net assets for years while paying everything it owes. The figure is a fact about a filing, not a verdict on a business.
Companies House does not verify the information filed with it. Everything here is what companies reported about themselves.
What happens next
The next batch of accounts is published the following working day, and this report runs again. The series builds a picture no single filing can give: whether the share of British companies filing accounts that do not balance is rising, and which industries are carrying it.
The series so far
How this was produced. Companies House publishes every set of accounts filed with it as open data. Cap News downloads that file each working day, reads the tagged figures out of each filing and joins them to the company register. Nothing here is hand picked. The method sets out what is counted and what is not.