UK Business: Activity, Size and Location 2026

Product Description

UK businesses broken down by legal status, industry, region, employment and turnover size bands.

The figures for this release are produced from an extract taken from the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR), recording the position of businesses on 13 March 2026, in line with the same timing of all previous releases of this publication.

This publication represents the businesses registered with HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) for Value Added Tax (VAT) and/or Pay As You Earn (PAYE). The Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (DBIST) produces Business population estimates, which provides full coverage of all types of businesses in the UK, including an estimate of the unregistered business population.

Numerous breaks in the methodology of the IDBR exist over time. In late 2025, we introduced a new tool for coding business descriptions to the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC). The new tool, called ClassifAI, represents an upgrade on the previous tool, called Gcode, in terms of ease of use and in overall quality. This means that there are some changes at detailed industry level, but comparisons between the two systems have shown a 93% agreement between them at the five-digit industry level.