Monthly estimates of business openings and closures, February 2025
Released: 2025-05-26
In February, the business closure rate edged down 0.1 percentage points to 4.8%. The business opening rate held steady at 4.8% for the second consecutive month. The closure rate was 0.2 percentage points above its 2015-to-2019 historical average, while the opening rate settled 0.1 percentage points above its historical average.
In February, the number of active businesses remained relatively unchanged, as the number of business openings was close to that of closures. In the same month, payroll employment decreased 0.3%, real gross domestic product was down 0.2% and business insolvency filings rose from 418 in January to 448 in February.
The decline in the overall number of business closures in February was driven by the finance and insurance, and management of companies and enterprises (-110 business closures compared with January; 26.1% of the decrease in business sector closures), health care and social assistance (-101; 23.9% of the decrease) and transportation and warehousing (-94; 22.3% of the decrease) sectors. The number of business closures changed little in the other sectors.
In February, the number of business openings was relatively unchanged in most sectors. However, the construction (-447 business openings compared with January; 69.5% of the overall variation) and transportation and warehousing (-263; 40.9% of the overall change) sectors posted notable declines. Meanwhile, the number of business openings increased in the accommodation and food services (+141; -21.9% of the overall change) and health care social assistance (+134; -20.8% of the overall change) sectors.
Chart 1
Monthly business openings and closures as a percentage of active businesses, business sector, January 2023 to January 2025, seasonally adjusted data
Chart 2
Percent contribution of sectors to the increase in both openings and closures, January to February 2025, seasonally adjusted data
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Note to readers
With each release, data for the preceding month are revised as additional information becomes available. This may also involve minor revisions to historical data due to seasonal adjustment. Users are encouraged to use the most up-to-date data available for each month.
Seasonal adjustment is applied separately to each sector to account for unique patterns, which can lead to discrepancies between business sector figures and the sum of sector-specific ones.
Percentages in Chart 2 represent the contribution of each sector to the business sector's overall variation. The percentage is negative when the direction of the sector's variation is different from that of the overall variation, and it's positive when sectoral and overall variation are in the same direction.
More precisely, a sector's contribution is negative if it shows a decrease in business openings (or closures), while the total number of business openings (or closures) has increased. Similarly, a sector's contribution is negative if it shows an increase in business openings (or closures), while the total number of business openings (or closures) has fallen.
For more information on the data presented in this release, see the Monthly Business Openings and Closures (5401) survey page.
Contact information
For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; infostats@statcan.gc.ca) or Media Relations (statcan.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.statcan@statcan.gc.ca).
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