London's growing share of new UK companies — and what's really behind it

London is taking a growing share of new UK companies. In 2016, 22.5% of companies incorporated in the UK had a London registered office; in 2025 it was 25.0%, and in the first half of 2026 it reached 27.2%. In Q2 2026 London registrations rose 5.5% year on year while the UK total fell 8.5%.

Those are exact Companies House counts, re-run on 8 October 2026. What they mean is less obvious than it looks, because a registered office is an address, not a place of business.

The numbers

And the most recent quarter against the same quarter a year earlier:

The shape is a step up in 2020–21, a dip in 2024, and a sharp rise since. The first half of 2026 is the highest London share in the series by a clear margin — 1.6 points above the previous peak in 2021.

Three readings — and what would tell them apart

The register records that London's share rose, not why. There are three plausible explanations, and they are not mutually exclusive.

1. More business is genuinely being started in London. London's sector mix leans towards professional services, software and finance — the codes that grew in our H1 2026 SIC edition, where software development registrations rose 71.4% and management consultancy 15.1%. Sectors that grew nationally and are London-heavy would lift London's share. Test: if this is the driver, London's share should be rising within individual SIC codes less than overall.

2. More companies are registered at London service addresses. Formation agents, accountants and virtual-office providers register very large numbers of companies at a small number of central London addresses. If a growing share of founders — including founders based elsewhere in the UK or overseas — use these services, London's count rises without any change in where businesses operate. Test: concentration of registrations at the busiest London addresses should be rising.

3. Fewer registrations elsewhere. London's share can rise because other places fall. In Q2 2026, every one of the ten busiest locations outside London fell year on year except Edinburgh, according to our city edition. Some of London's share gain is simply the rest of the UK registering fewer companies.

The 2020–21 step up coincides with the surge in incorporations during the pandemic — 2020 was then the busiest year in the series — much of it online, where a London service address is the default option for a founder anywhere. That is consistent with the second reading, but the register alone cannot prove it.

Caveats that matter here

• A registered office is not a place of business. It is a legal correspondence address, and services that provide one are concentrated in central London.
• The location filter is a text match. Companies House has no city field; we count companies whose registered office address contains "London". That can include a "London Road" in another town, and excludes London companies whose address names only a borough.
• Addresses change. The filter matches each company's current registered office (or its last one, if dissolved), not the address it was formed with. Counts for older years drift slightly as companies move; this is why every figure here was re-run on the same day.

What it means if you sell to new businesses

Whatever the cause, London is where the largest volume of new companies appears on the register — more than 54,000 in a single quarter. For suppliers to new businesses, that makes it the deepest single market to work. The caveat cuts the other way, too: a company with a London service address may be run from Leeds or from Lagos, so check the directors' and trading details before assuming a London territory.

Open London companies formed in the last 12 months on the live register, or compare other places on our city pages. For regional territory planning, the full Q2 2026 ranking of 39 towns and cities is in our city edition.

Figures: exact Companies House counts (advanced company search, location "London", by incorporation date) re-run on 8 October 2026, under the Open Government Licence v3.0. See our data sources.