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36% of pub and bar accounts filed on 17 September were in deficit
12,785 sets of company accounts were filed with Companies House on 17 September 2026. This is what they show.
One industry stands out in the accounts filed with Companies House on 17 September 2026. Of the 42 companies in pub and bar businesses that filed that day, 15 reported liabilities larger than assets, or 36 per cent, against 16 per cent across all 12,554 filings.
Key points
- 12,785 sets of accounts were filed with Companies House on 17 September 2026.
- 1,968 of them, 16 per cent, reported net liabilities rather than net assets.
- 3,250 filings showed a weaker position than the prior year, against 6,963 that improved.
- The filings cover 43,553 employees between them.
- Public houses and bars had the highest share in deficit at 36 per cent of 42 filings.
What happened
Companies House publishes every set of accounts filed with it as open data on the day it is received. On 17 September 2026 that amounted to 12,785 filings, of which 12,554 carried a balance sheet figure we could read. Those are the accounts this report covers.
Of them, 1,968 reported net liabilities: the company owed more than it owned at its balance sheet date. That is 16 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 17 September 2026, 3,250 filings were weaker than a year earlier and 6,963 were stronger, meaning 32 per cent of those with a comparable prior year went backwards. That is below 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 | 791 | 25% |
| Buying and selling of own real estate | 580 | 28% |
| Management consultancy activities other than financial management | 525 | 14% |
| Other business support service activities n.e.c. | 510 | 13% |
| Residents property management | 481 | 3% |
| Information technology consultancy activities | 319 | 14% |
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Public houses and bars | 42 | 36% |
| Unlicensed restaurants and cafes | 68 | 35% |
| Taxi operation | 39 | 28% |
| Buying and selling of own real estate | 580 | 28% |
| Other holiday and other collective accommodation | 40 | 28% |
| Sports and recreation education | 30 | 27% |
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Hemel Hempstead | 24 | 38% |
| Maidstone | 31 | 35% |
| Waterlooville | 27 | 33% |
| Wolverhampton | 31 | 32% |
| Taunton | 26 | 31% |
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.