Most businesses fail to survive
Most Greek businesses are extremely short-lived, as 56% of them “die” before completing a decade of life. This proves business ventures in Greece are often done casually, without a plan or sufficient funds, motivated by need and not because the would-be entrepreneurs have identified a real opportunity.
This phenomenon is mainly seen in two of the busiest sectors of Greek entrepreneurship, retail and food service, where 55.16% and 65.83% respectively of businesses that closed were up to 10 years old.
In these two sectors, high closure rates are observed well before the first decade: In food service, 42.71% of businesses close after five years of existence at the most, with 3.68% closing within 12 months. In retail trade 1,540 new businesses, or 5.73% close within a year, while a total of 34.19% only complete up to five years.
According to General Commercial Register (GEMI) data, in 2016, 4,147 food service firms closed, 171.58% more than in 2015. In 2022, 3,063 businesses closed in the same sector, up by 63.53% from 2021. In retail – excluding the car sales sector – in 2016, there were a record 6,413 shutdowns, up by 193.37% from 2015, while in 2022 3,845 retail businesses closed, 32.18% more than in 2021.
