Retail trade: company insolvencies in Australia
In Retail trade, 1,006 companies entered external administration in 2025-26, 7.1% of the year's total.
That was up 15.5% on 2024-25.
Source: ASIC, Australian insolvency statistics, Series 1, retrieved 26 Oct 2026. Grouped by industry and summarised by onestepright. No company is named. Series 1 to 4 Oct 2026, released 19 Oct 2026. Series 3.1 to 2024-25. Both change as ASIC publishes.
ASIC's statistics are not exhaustive. They are based on the information available to ASIC at the time of publication.
In 2024-25, administrators' reports in Retail trade most often named trading losses (56.2%) and inadequate cash flow or high cash use (55.3%).
- Trading losses: 56.2%
- Inadequate cash flow or high cash use: 55.3%
- Poor strategic management of business: 43.7%
- Other: 40.4%
- Poor financial control including lack of records: 32.2%
- Under capitalisation: 30.6%
- Poor economic conditions: 30.5%
- Poor management of accounts receivable: 8.6%
- Business restructuring: 3.6%
- Fraud: 2.7%
- Dispute among directors: 1.9%
- Industry restructuring: 1.8%
- Natural disaster: 1.0%
- DOCA failed: 0.6%
Source: ASIC, Australian insolvency statistics, Series 3.1, retrieved 26 Oct 2026. Grouped by industry and summarised by onestepright. No company is named. Series 1 to 4 Oct 2026, released 19 Oct 2026. Series 3.1 to 2024-25. Both change as ASIC publishes.
See business exits in Retail trade, every business that stopped trading, from ABS data.
ASIC does not operate, sponsor or endorse this site, and did not write this page. The grouping and the summaries are onestepright's.
Read ASIC's insolvency statistics (opens in a new window) in full.