Data

Businesses in the EU member states 2024: France compared

How many businesses there are in each EU member state, what share France has and how dense businesses are per inhabitant, based on Eurostat’s harmonised figures.

Reference year 2024 · Eurostat data as of 30 September 2026 · retrieved on 4 November 2026 · by Martin Adamec

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33,978,235businesses in the EU-27 (2024)
16.0%of which in France (5,445,577)
75.6businesses per 1,000 inhabitants in the EU
79.3businesses per 1,000 inhabitants in France

All 27 member states

The table can be scrolled sideways.

Number of businesses (Eurostat indicator “Number of enterprises”, NACE B–S excluding O and S94), reference year 2024, sorted by number: Eurostat, Structural Business Statistics (sbs_ovw_act), data as of 30 September 2026, retrieved on 4 November 2026. Inhabitants on 1 January 2024: Eurostat, population on 1 January (tps00001), data as of 30 September 2026. Share and values per 1,000 inhabitants calculated by firmdata.fr.
Rank	Member state	Businesses	Share of EU	Inhabitants	per 1,000 inh.
1	France	5,445,577	16.0%	68,669,303 (provisional)	79.3
2	Italy	4,652,416	13.7%	58,971,230	78.9
3	Spain	3,516,793	10.4%	48,619,695	72.3
4	Germany	3,236,281	9.5%	83,456,045	38.8
5	Poland	2,821,170	8.3%	36,620,970	77.0
6	Netherlands	2,424,297	7.1%	17,942,942	135.1
7	Portugal	1,470,937	4.3%	11,204,347	131.3
8	Czechia	1,366,927	4.0%	10,900,555	125.4
9	Romania	1,030,603	3.0%	19,067,576 (estimated)	54.1
10	Greece	964,851	2.8%	10,375,764	93.0
11	Belgium	931,405	2.7%	11,817,096	78.8
12	Hungary	905,324	2.7%	9,584,627	94.5
13	Sweden	873,878	2.6%	10,551,707	82.8
14	Slovakia	682,029	2.0%	5,424,687	125.7
15	Austria	628,058	1.8%	9,158,750	68.6
16	Finland	478,708	1.4%	5,603,851	85.4
17	Bulgaria	415,087	1.2%	6,445,481	64.4
18	Ireland	410,205	1.2%	5,351,681	76.6
19	Denmark	379,306	1.1%	5,961,249	63.6
20	Lithuania	371,281	1.1%	2,885,891	128.7
21	Croatia	252,125	0.7%	3,861,967	65.3
22	Slovenia	208,078	0.6%	2,123,949	98.0
23	Estonia	157,547	0.5%	1,374,687	114.6
24	Latvia	152,706	0.4%	1,878,575	81.3
25	Cyprus	94,379	0.3%	966,365	97.7
26	Malta	59,496	0.2%	563,443	105.6
27	Luxembourg	48,771	0.1%	672,050	72.6
	EU-27	33,978,235	100.0%	449,489,862 (estimated, provisional)	75.6

You can request company data for countries other than France on the EU and other markets page. The population figure is provisional for France and estimated for Romania (Eurostat flags).

What the table shows

Four member states account for 49.6% of businesses: France (5,445,577), Italy (4,652,416), Spain (3,516,793), Germany (3,236,281).
Per inhabitant the range runs from 38.8 in Germany to 135.1 in Netherlands. The highest values are in Netherlands, Portugal, Lithuania, Slovakia, Czechia.
France ranks 1 of 27 with 5,445,577 businesses and 15 with 79.3 businesses per 1,000 inhabitants (EU average 75.6). France has 15.3% of the EU’s inhabitants and 16.0% of its businesses.

Why density should be read with care

The figures are supplied by the national statistical offices, and how completely micro-businesses are covered may differ between member states. For France, Eurostat flags a break in series in 2021, so comparisons over time need care. Differences between member states may therefore also stem from coverage and not only from economic structure. We do not infer causes from the table.

Definitions

Enterprise in EU business statistics: the smallest combination of legal units that makes its own decisions about its activity. For France this gives 5,445,577 businesses in 2024. INSEE, using a narrower scope (market sectors excluding agriculture and finance), counts 5,178,283 in 2023.
Scope: NACE sections B to S excluding public administration (O) and membership organisations (S94). Agriculture and forestry (A) and private households (T) lie outside these sections and are not included.
Per 1,000 inhabitants: businesses divided by the population on 1 January 2024, times 1,000, rounded to one decimal place.

How to cite

The figures come from Eurostat; you may reuse them with attribution. Suggestion:

firmdata.fr: Businesses in the EU member states 2024: France compared. Based on Eurostat, sbs_ovw_act and tps00001 (data as of 30 September 2026). Retrieved on 4 November 2026. https://firmdata.fr/en/donnees/entreprises-ue/

Company data from another EU country?

For countries other than France we compile data on request and tell you in advance what can be delivered from public sources.

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