The ASIC company register has released the following breakdown of activity between 1 July and 30 September 2020.
- There were 66,546 company registrations and 41,605 company deregistrations in Australia.
- At the end of September 2020, the total number of companies on the register was approximately 2.8 million, up from 2.7 for the same period last year.
- New registrations were 12% higher between July and September 2020, compared with the same period in 2019.
The table below details how many companies were registered in each state during this quarter:
State | Number of companies registered |
New South Wales | 24,503 |
Victoria | 18,268 |
Australian Capital Territory | 1,275 |
Queensland | 12,811 |
South Australia | 3,206 |
Western Australia | 5,479 |
Northern Territory | 272 |
Tasmania | 732 |
It is, of course, possible that many of these new company registrations reflect sole traders and partnerships incorporating in order to limit personal liability during uncertain times, but we have been unable to verify whether this is the case.