In January 2026, German local courts recorded a total of 1,919 corporate insolvency applications. According to the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), this figure represented a 4.9 percent increase compared to the previous year’s month. It is noted that the reported applications only enter the statistics after the initial ruling by the insolvency court, meaning the actual filing of the insolvency application often occurred approximately three months earlier.
The outstanding claims from creditors related to the corporate insolvencies reported in January 2026 amounted to approximately 3.1 billion euros. This figure marks a decline from the 5.3 billion euros recorded in January 2025. This decrease in claims is attributed to the fact that fewer economically significant companies filed for insolvency in January 2026 compared to January 2025.
When scaled to 10,000 companies, there were a total of 5.4 corporate insolvencies in January 2026. The highest frequency of insolvency was observed in the hospitality sector, with 9.1 cases per 10,000 companies. This was followed by the commercial sector of transport and storage at 8.6 cases, and the construction industry at 7.8 insolvencies per 10,000 companies.
Furthermore, there were 6,142 consumer insolvencies reported in January 2026, which was a decrease of 1.3 percent compared to the same month the previous year.