site.btaBulgaria's Enterprise Death Rate 2nd Highest in EU in 2020 - Eurostat 

In 2020, Bulgaria's enterprise death rate soared to 14.64% as 50,139 businesses were terminated. Bulgaria was second only to Lithuania, which had the highest enterprise death rate of 20.8%. The preliminary rate of enterprise deaths in 2019 was 12.65%, with 44,221 terminated companies, Eurostat said Friday.

In 2020, Bulgaria's enterprise birth rate dropped to 9.05% of all economically active enterprises, compared to 11.37% in 2019. Bulgaria had 30,983 newly born enterprises in 2020, compared to 39,763 in 2019.

In 2020, the rate of enterprise births in the EU decreased from the previous year by 1.1 percentage points (pp) to 8.9%. Preliminary rates of enterprise deaths (2020: 7.6%) remained about at the same level as the year before, showing some resilience of enterprises during the COVID-19 pandemic, Eurostat said. 

In 2020, enterprise birth rates among the EU Member States ranged from 4.6% in Greece, 5.4% in Austria, 6.5% in Italy, 6.7% in Ireland, 6.8% in Sweden and 6.9% in Belgium to 11.3% for both France and Latvia, 12.1% in Estonia, 12.2% in Portugal, 14.1% in Malta and 18.1% in Lithuania. 

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the business environment tremendously, including the temporary shutdown of some business sectors, making many reluctant to start new businesses as the existing ones struggled to keep afloat. In reaction, governments introduced temporary support schemes to offset the impact of the crisis, which may also explain the resilience of the enterprise death rate in 2020.