Spain has 520,505 registered companies that show no sign of active operations, according to a study by corporate information firm Informa D&B. These inactive entities remain listed in the Mercantile Register despite failing to submit required annual financial accounts.
Informa D&B defines these entities as ghost companies, which must fail to file accounts for at least two years to receive the designation. Although Spanish regulations establish penalties for failing to file annual accounts, many businesses remain non-compliant indefinitely.
Only about 10 percent of ghost companies manage to resume normal operations. According to the report, 72.13 percent of these companies remain inactive, while more than 42 percent continue to miss filing deadlines and 14 percent have had their official registry page closed.
The study showed that 33.77 percent of companies that have missed filings for over two years were incorporated between 2011 and 2020. Another 24.33 percent were created between 2001 and 2010. Approximately 65 percent of all ghost companies hold share capital equal to or below 5,000 euros.
Sector breakdown
Construction and real estate activities account for the largest volume of ghost companies, with 128,589 inactive firms representing 24.7 percent of the national total. The trade sector follows with 105,062 inactive companies, representing 20.18 percent. Together, these two sectors comprise nearly half of all inactive entities in Spain.
When measuring the proportion of inactive firms within each specific industry, trade registers the highest ghost rate at 30.74 percent. Extractive industries follow closely with a 30.66 percent ghost rate, while hospitality records 28.79 percent. Financial intermediation shows the lowest inactivity rate at 12.57 percent.
In several other sectors, the raw number of ghost companies remains small. Extractive industries record 771 inactive firms, which equals 0.15 percent of the national total. Energy accounts for 5,839 inactive companies at 1.12 percent, while education accounts for 8,374 companies at 1.61 percent.
Geographic concentration
Inactive companies show a heavy geographical concentration in Spain's largest regional economies. Madrid, Andalusia, and Catalonia together contain 284,000 inactive companies, which represents more than half of the national total.
However, the highest proportions of inactive businesses relative to total registered firms occur in northern Spain rather than the main economic hubs. Madrid and Catalonia both record inactivity rates near 26 percent. Navarre records the highest rate in the country at 57.69 percent, followed by the Basque Country at 37.75 percent and Andalusia at 32.11 percent. Aragon and the Balearic Islands report the lowest inactivity rates at 19.44 percent and 20.60 percent respectively.
Zombie companies
The Informa D&B report also details a separate category of troubled businesses termed zombie companies. The study defines zombie companies as low profitability businesses whose survival is threatened because they cannot cover their financial costs. Unlike ghost companies, zombie companies continue to file annual financial statements, which allows analysts to evaluate their economic condition.
