According to the National Institute of Statistics (INE), active companies recorded, on average, successive increases over the last four years, namely 5.0 percent in 2019, 1.2 percent in 2020 and 1.8 percent in 2021.

Between March and April 2020, the number of active companies decreased by 18.3 percent which coincided with the first lockdown, the largest decrease was in the period between January 2018 and August 2021.

The minimum value of the monthly number of creation of companies was reached in April in 2020, with 7,194 companies created.

Between 2018 and 2020, January was the month with the highest number of creation of companies, namely 4,109 in 2018, 5,541 in 2019 and 4,808 in 2020.

Transport and storage, information and communication and other services sectors recorded the highest monthly average creation rates during the period under review.

In terms of location, the highest rates of company creation were registered in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area and in the North, with these two regions representing, on average, 65.6 percent of the total number of companies created during the period in question.