The number of corporate bankruptcies in Luxembourg dipped slightly in the third quarter of 2025, but the year-to-date trend is worsening, and the toll in lost jobs is mounting.

According to a new joint report from Statec and the justice ministry published on Tuesday, 2,310 jobs have been lost due to firm failures in the first three quarters of the year.

In Q3 alone, 248 firms were declared insolvent and 38 companies were liquidated. That’s a 5% drop compared to the 261 insolvency judgments during the same quarter in 2024.

Yet between January and September, there were 828 insolvencies, up 1.6% compared to the same period in 2024. When excluding holding companies and investment funds – which, legally, are corporate entities but rarely have employees or real economic activities – the increase is 1.8%.

The majority of bankruptcies in that period (221) were holding companies and investment funds, sectors that have been particularly affected. In the retail (trade) sector, there were 126 bankruptcies, resulting in roughly 300 job losses.

The construction sector saw 115 bankruptcies, which is 26 fewer than in 2024. Job losses there are estimated at 590, down 41%, but still accounting for around a quarter of all jobs lost through corporate failure.

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In the hospitality sector, 89 firms went under, roughly the same as last year, leading to 373 job losses, which is a drop of 13%.

One striking datapoint is that “administrative and support services” recorded 518 job losses in the first nine months of 2025, a soaring 225 % increase over the same period in 2024. Statec attributes much of that jump to the insolvency of a single major company in September.

Liquidations also surged. Over the first three quarters of 2025, they were up 59% from 2024, though the baseline in 2024 had been particularly low. Of the companies liquidated in Q3, 38% were holding firms or funds and 17% were retail businesses.

The report says the data are preliminary and based on judicial decisions recorded as of 13 October 2025.