In Germany, the number of corporate bankruptcies for the years 2026 and 2027 is forecast to remain at a consistently high level, amounting to 25.9 thousand cases per year, which together gives almost 52 thousand bankruptcies over the two years.

This forecast was issued by the Hamburg-based subsidiary of the international credit insurer Allianz Trade. Analysts noted that the last time a comparable number of bankruptcies was observed in the country was in 2013, at the end of the European debt crisis. According to Milo Bogarts, head of Allianz Trade's German division, no improvement in the situation in the FRG is expected in the near future. He cited geopolitical tensions around Iran, weak economic growth, a sharp shortage of qualified personnel, and high operating costs of business as the main reasons for stagnation. “Transport and logistics, construction, the hotel and restaurant sector, as well as automotive and machinery manufacturing were hit the hardest,” Bogarts said.

These assessments echo data from the German Economics Institute, which in 2025 already noted that the rise in bankruptcies in Germany was caused by the energy crisis and recession affecting companies across all sectors of the economy, with the largest share of bankruptcies falling on trade, the hotel industry, transport, and real‑estate

Among the most high‑profile cases in recent times, experts point to the bankruptcies of the Galeria department‑store chain, the discount retailer Kodi, and the power‑supply component manufacturer Varta. These cases illustrate the pressure that even large players in the consumer and industrial sectors have faced. At the same time, according to the Institute for Economic Research in Halle, as cited in the analytical materials, the wave of bankruptcies in 2025‑2026 resulted from a full transfer of the effect of interest‑rate hikes of more than 400 basis points, as well as the energy crisis and a decline in demand that accumulated after the winding down of pandemic‑era anti‑crisis measures.

Allianz Trade estimates that the number of corporate bankruptcies in Germany will only begin to decline in 2028. It is expected that the figure will fall by 5 % – to 24.6 thousand cases. Experts attribute this to the expectation that Germany’s anti‑crisis and cyclical measures will have produced a tangible effect by that time. However, until then, the German economy appears likely to remain in a zone of heightened corporate risk: a combination of structural constraints, high energy costs, and weak external demand makes a rapid reversal of the negative trend unlikely, and the projected almost 52 thousand bankruptcies over two years raise the question of how resilient the recovery trajectory will be once it begins.

Information Service “A”, photos from open internet sources.

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