Germany bites the dust
Updated 16 August 2026 · newest entry Thor Gruppe, Erfurt, 13 Aug 2026
A German company fails every twenty minutes. Here are 31 you can name: 24,726 jobs, newest first.
The national picture, month by month
Insolvencies of partnerships and corporations, and the jobs caught up in them, from the IWH-Insolvenztrend. April 2026 was the worst month for filings, February 2026 for jobs. The gap between those two answers is the point: filings grind upward while the jobs behind them swing on whether any large employer happened to go under that month.
January 2026 = 100. Both lines are indexed so they can share one axis. Filings and jobs are an order of magnitude apart, and a second y-axis would only make the two look related on a scale someone picked. Hover for the real numbers.
Show the numbers
| Month | Insolvencies | Jobs affected |
|---|---|---|
| January 2026 | 1,391 | 17,000 |
| February 2026 | 1,466 | 23,000 |
| March 2026 | 1,716 | 14,000 |
| April 2026 | 1,776 | 20,000 |
| May 2026 | 1,518 | 11,000 |
| June 2026 | 1,702 | 14,000 |
| July 2026 | 1,689 | 13,000 |
The named cases
Showing all 31 cases · 24,726 jobs
The biggest single hits
Employees affected, largest first. Twelve shown.
No cases in this sector.
Where the jobs are
Employees affected by sector. Nationally the worst-hit trades this year are metalworking, automotive supply, electrical engineering and retail; services account for 61% of all filings.
The ledger
Newest first. Tap a row for the story behind it.
| Date | Company | Where | Sector | Employees | What happened |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 Aug 2026 | Erfurt Thüringen | Construction & trades | 800 of 1,100 across the group | Filed, self-administration | |
| Building and industrial fitting. Thor Industriemontagen went under a protective shield in June; close corporate ties pulled the subsidiaries in during August. Four sites affected: Erfurt, Heiligenstadt, Menteroda, Leinefelde-Worbis. Management blames higher costs, higher interest rates, and construction and refurbishment projects that were postponed rather than cancelled. Work on the order book continues. | |||||
| 1 Aug 2026 | Bestensee Brandenburg | Food & drink | 400 across 54 branches | Filed | |
| A bakery chain across Berlin and Brandenburg. Several branches were set to close on 1 August. One of more than sixty bakery insolvencies in the first half of 2026 alone. The trade is caught between energy and ingredient costs it cannot pass on and staff it cannot find. | |||||
| 1 Aug 2026 | Niedernberg Bayern | Retail & fashion | 330 220 from stores, 110 from head office | Staff released | |
| The home-decor chain, insolvent for the second time barely a year after finishing the first. The owner filed again for self-administration in May 2026; on 1 August 330 staff were released. They had July’s wages via insolvency benefit and nothing after that. Around 150 German branches are affected. The headcount here is the staff released on that date, not the whole chain. | |||||
| 31 Jul 2026 | Föhren Rheinland-Pfalz | Construction & trades | 400 | Preliminary administration | |
| Tiles, building materials and natural stone, family-run since 1890. This is the second insolvency in under two years: the first was November 2024, creditors approved a plan in July 2025, and continuation was considered secure at the time. It was not. Wages for August through October are covered by pre-financed insolvency benefit while an investor is sought. | |||||
| 15 Jul 2026 | Hamburg Hamburg | Food & drink | 14 | Preliminary proceedings | |
| Chocolate and pralines made in Hamburg-Hohenfelde since 1928. Small enough that it would normally never make a list like this, and included because it is the shape of the problem in miniature: raw material prices up, wage costs up, customers spending less. The shops stayed open. | |||||
| 14 Jul 2026 | Sonnenbühl Baden-Württemberg | Energy & renewables | 80 | Filed | |
| A wind and solar project developer, filed at Amtsgericht Tübingen on 14 July 2026 along with three subsidiaries, insolvent and over-indebted. Bond trading was suspended the same week. The wind trade is now going the way the solar trade went: Chinese manufacturers pricing below what German firms can match. | |||||
| 7 Jul 2026 | Brake Niedersachsen | Healthcare | 350 | Operations ceased | |
| The hospital stopped operating on 7 July 2026. Since 2022, 85 German hospitals covering 102 sites have filed for insolvency; two in three are running at a loss, and the head of the German Hospital Federation has warned of a three-year wave. The date here is the closure, not the original filing. | |||||
| 26 Jun 2026 | Taufkirchen Bayern | Manufacturing & industry | 850 at Taufkirchen; ~2,000 group-wide | Protective shield | |
| Upholstered furniture, founded 1948. Filed for a protective shield on 26 June 2026 against weak demand and cheap imports; the upholstery trade saw revenue fall 13% year on year in January and February. June, July and August wages were covered by insolvency benefit. | |||||
| 23 Jun 2026 | Baiersbronn Baden-Württemberg | Manufacturing & industry | 210 | Preliminary administration | |
| A paper mill making 95,000 tonnes a year of virgin-fibre folding boxboard for food, pharma and cosmetics packaging, on roughly €80m of revenue. Cited persistently high energy costs and structural overcapacity across the European board industry. Amtsgericht Rottweil appointed a preliminary administrator the same day. | |||||
| 4 Jun 2026 | Roßleben-Wiehe Thüringen | Food & drink | 280 across 44 branches | Preliminary administration | |
| 44 branches across Thüringen, Sachsen-Anhalt and Sachsen, all of which stayed open through the preliminary proceedings ordered on 4 June. | |||||
| 21 May 2026 | Werl Nordrhein-Westfalen | Food & drink | 150 | Proceedings opened, self-administration | |
| A praline and chocolate maker in Werl-Westönnen. Amtsgericht Arnsberg opened proceedings in self-administration on 21 May 2026. The second confectioner on this page in three months, for the same reason: cocoa and sugar prices that rose faster than anyone could pass on. | |||||
| 7 May 2026 | Rehburg-Loccum Niedersachsen | Manufacturing & industry | 424 277 in Rehburg-Loccum, 147 in Gedern | Filed | |
| An automotive supplier, insolvent for the second time. The administrator points at the cost of the previous restructuring (site moves and closures) colliding with unexpected sales falls in late 2025 and early 2026. Metalworking and auto supply were the hardest-hit sectors of the half-year. | |||||
| April 2026 | Leinburg-Diepersdorf Bayern | Manufacturing & industry | 375 redundancies, from a workforce of about 730 | Filed, 375 jobs cut | |
| An automotive plastics supplier across three sites. The plants at Leinburg-Diepersdorf and Lüdenscheid were kept; Oberlungwitz in Saxony was closed. 375 of roughly 730 staff were let go. The figure here is the redundancies, which is the number the reporting settled on. | |||||
| March 2026 | Radolfzell am Bodensee Baden-Württemberg | Manufacturing & industry | 150 | Filed, since wound down | |
| Automation and assembly systems. Filed in early March intending to restructure in self-administration and reposition strategically. No investor was found. Contracts were dissolved at the end of July and the business shuts completely by the end of October. The full arc from "sanieren" to "schließen" took eight months. | |||||
| 6 Feb 2026 | Ganderkesee Niedersachsen | Manufacturing & industry | 400 | Filed, self-administration | |
| Excavators and construction machinery, a name in the trade for decades. Filed for self-administration on 6 February 2026 across the affected group companies. | |||||
| 16 Jan 2026 | Berlin Berlin | Hospitality | 5,500 across ~125 hotels in Germany and Austria | Filed, self-administration | |
| The largest insolvency of the year and one of the largest hotel failures Europe has seen. Roughly 140 group companies filed at once at Amtsgericht Charlottenburg on 16 January. The group ran about 250 hotels in twelve countries on €1.3bn of revenue: Hilton, Accor, Dorint and Wyndham franchises alongside its own Vagabond Club, Hyperion and Aedenlife brands. Insolvency benefit ran out at the end of March; the operating companies have paid wages out of trading since April. Investors have been found for about 25 hotels, and 450 staff have been made redundant as the group is broken up. | |||||
| 22 Dec 2025 | Kempten Bayern | Food & drink | 2,900 across 72 branches | Protective shield | |
| An Allgäu grocery institution and Edeka partner, carrying €200m of debt against long-running losses, heavy pension obligations and structural gaps in the branch network. Filed at Kempten on 22 December 2025; the news broke on 9 January. Branches and filling stations traded normally throughout. REWE Group plans to take roughly half the 72 branches plus a bakery. | |||||
| 28 Nov 2025 | Remagen Rheinland-Pfalz | Healthcare | 118 | Operations ceased | |
| Takeover talks failed and the hospital stopped operating on 28 November 2025. The date is the closure, not the filing. | |||||
| 17 Nov 2025 | Karben Hessen | Manufacturing & industry | 830 | Filed | |
| One of Germany’s best-known office furniture makers, family-run since 1925, filed on 17 November 2025. Office furniture has been squeezed from both ends: companies shrinking their floorspace after home working, and a construction market that stopped fitting out new buildings. | |||||
| 10 Nov 2025 | Rötha Sachsen | Retail & fashion | 390 across 96 stores | Court-supervised restructuring | |
| One of Germany’s leading lingerie retail chains, and insolvent for the second time. The first was 2020, which took it from 115 stores to 96. Amtsgericht Leipzig ordered restructuring in self-administration on 10 November 2025 and opened proceedings on 30 January 2026. Up to 15 stores face closure. | |||||
| September 2025 | Gifhorn Niedersachsen | Food & drink | 220 across ~40 branches | Filed, self-administration | |
| A family bakery with its own shops plus in-store counters at REWE and Edeka. Amtsgericht Gifhorn ordered preliminary self-administration; wages went onto insolvency benefit while the 40 branches kept trading. | |||||
| 21 Aug 2025 | Sonnefeld Bayern | Manufacturing & industry | 125 | Filed | |
| A Franconian furniture factory, filed 21 August 2025. One of a run of German furniture makers to go in 2025. The trade was hit by the same collapse in demand that took Himolla under a protective shield the following June. | |||||
| August 2025 | Mönchengladbach Nordrhein-Westfalen | Manufacturing & industry | 70 | Filed | |
| A designer furniture and interiors brand, insolvent in August 2025. Small, but the kind of name that had been treated as permanent. | |||||
| July 2025 | Porta Westfalica Nordrhein-Westfalen | Retail & fashion | 2,700 of 3,900 across the group | Filed | |
| The Hammer home-textiles chain and the Schlau trade markets, filed in July 2025. On 2 October it was confirmed that around 70 of the 160 Hammer stores and all 60 Schlau stores would close, taking roughly 2,700 of 3,900 jobs, the second-largest single loss on this page. | |||||
| 1 Jun 2025 | Bitterfeld-Wolfen & Hohenstein-Ernstthal Sachsen-Anhalt / Sachsen | Energy & renewables | 620 331 in Thalheim, 289 in Hohenstein-Ernstthal | Filed, since wound down | |
| Solar cell manufacturing in Thalheim and PV development and machine-building in Hohenstein-Ernstthal, filed 1 June 2025. Module production in Freiberg had already closed in March 2024. The rescue failed and roughly 600 staff were let go in September 2025, leaving a small wind-down team. Cause: Chinese import pricing plus uncertainty over renewables subsidies, the same squeeze now working through the rest of the German solar trade. | |||||
| May 2025 | Germersheim Rheinland-Pfalz | Manufacturing & industry | 230 | Operations ceased | |
| A bedroom furniture maker that had been insolvent since November 2023. Production stopped in May 2025 and the site was finally wound up over the summer, taking around 230 jobs. The date here is the shutdown, not the filing, which predates this page. | |||||
| 22 Mar 2025 | Harsum Niedersachsen | Manufacturing & industry | 1,350 | Filed, self-administration | |
| An automotive machining supplier. Four German subsidiaries filed on 22 March 2025 after three major banks pulled their credit lines; Amtsgericht Hildesheim opened proceedings over three of them on 1 May. Production continued at all four plants. The founder’s summary of what happened to him: large corporations "killed us stone cold". | |||||
| 1 Mar 2025 | Mainz Rheinland-Pfalz | Healthcare | 2,600 group employed about 4,200 | Proceedings opened | |
| The Red Cross hospital company for Rheinland-Pfalz, with hospitals in Alzey, Kirchen, Neuwied, Hachenburg and Altenkirchen plus medical care centres, treating more than 80,000 patients a year. Filed in December 2024; Amtsgericht Mainz ordered preliminary proceedings on 7 February 2025 and opened them on 1 March. The DRK withdrew from the hospital business entirely and the sites were handed to new operators one by one. Of the roughly 140 German insolvencies in 2025 involving more than 250 staff, nine were clinics or care providers. | |||||
| March 2025 | Halle (Westfalen) Nordrhein-Westfalen | Retail & fashion | 560 ~280 at head office, ~280 in stores | Filed, head office wound down | |
| The third insolvency in six years: 2019 after the over-ambitious Hallhuber expansion, a StaRUG restructuring in 2023, then self-administration at Amtsgericht Bielefeld in March 2025. Over the course of 2025 the Halle head office was cleared out down to a wind-down crew, and the brand largely withdrew from German retail. | |||||
| March 2025 | Köln Nordrhein-Westfalen | Retail & fashion | 300 across 97 stores | Filed, since wound down | |
| The mattress retailer behind the Matratzen Concord and MFO stores, insolvent in March 2025. All 97 shops and the online business were shut by the end of the year, taking about 300 jobs. A chain that once ran more than a thousand branches in Germany. | |||||
| February 2025 | Weßling Bayern | Manufacturing & industry | 1,000 | Filed, since wound down | |
| The electric air-taxi company, insolvent for the second time in three months in late February 2025 after the rescue financing fell through. Germany’s most expensive lesson in the gap between a funding round and a business. | |||||
| Total shown | 24,726 | 31 cases | |||
What the national numbers say
- 12,900 corporate insolvencies in the first half of 2026, up 7.8% and the highest half-year figure since 2013. Roughly 165,000 jobs were caught up in them, against 143,000 in the same period of 2025.
- Size is no longer protection. Filings by firms with more than 250 employees rose 28.6% in H1 2026, far faster than the overall rate. The two largest cases of the year, Revo Hospitality and Feneberg, are both on this page.
- Young firms are failing fastest. Among businesses no more than two years old, insolvencies rose 25.3% in H1 2026.
- Services carry the bulk. Just under 7,900 filings, 61.2% of the total and up 12.6%. Construction rose 4.5%. Retail was the only sector to fall, by 1.3%, which says more about how many retailers have already gone than about retail recovering.
- Some trades are being cleared out. More than sixty bakeries filed in the first half of 2026. At least eight breweries have filed since January, among them Leikeim in Altenkunstadt, Mauritius in Zwickau and Lohrmanns in Dresden. Since 2022, 85 hospitals covering 102 sites have filed. Solar has its own wave, of which Meyer Burger was only the loudest.
- 2025 was already a record. Creditreform counted 24,064 corporate insolvencies over the year, 2,252 more than 2024. On IWH's narrower count of partnerships and corporations it was 17,604, the highest since 2005 and about 5% above the 2009 financial crisis. Roughly 170,000 jobs were caught up in them, some 62,000 of those in manufacturing.
- Consumer insolvencies ran to about 38,800 in H1 2026, up 2.3%.
- Creditreform expects the wave to peak by the end of 2026, with a turn no earlier than 2027. Forecasts for the full year range from 24,500 cases (Allianz Trade) to 30,000 (Atradius).
How to read this page
- "Insolvent" is not one thing. A protective shield (Schutzschirmverfahren) or self-administration (Eigenverwaltung) means management stays in place and the business usually keeps trading. Feneberg's tills never stopped ringing. A preliminary administration hands control to a court-appointed administrator. Only the rows flagged in the last column have actually stopped. The distinction matters: many of these firms will survive in some form, and several already have not.
- Headcounts are as first reported and are not restated afterwards. Thor's 800 are of 1,100 group-wide; Himolla's 850 are the Taufkirchen site out of about 2,000 across the group; Revo's 5,500 are the German and Austrian hotels. Where a report gave a range, the lower figure is used. Where no figure was published, the case is not on the page at all, which is why some genuinely large failures are missing.
- Dates are the event date, not the publication date, except where only a month was ever reported (shown as "March 2026") or where the only firm date is a closure rather than a filing, which is said so in the row.
- Three national counts, three different universes. Creditreform counts all corporate insolvencies; Destatis counts filings registered by the courts; IWH counts insolvencies of partnerships and corporations only. Their totals differ by thousands and none is wrong. They measure different things. The monthly charts use IWH throughout, because it is the only one of the three that publishes jobs alongside filings each month, and mixing sources across a single line would produce a step that isn't real.
- This is a sample. 31 named cases against roughly 12,900 filings in six months. The binding constraint is the published-headcount rule: plenty of genuine insolvencies never get a number attached in the reporting, and those are left off rather than guessed at. It is weighted towards firms big enough or old enough to be written about. The overwhelming majority of German insolvencies are companies of five or ten people that no one reports at all.
- Official filing counts lag reality: a case enters the Destatis statistics only after the court's first decision, typically about three months after the company actually filed.
Sources
- Creditreform: Insolvenzen in Deutschland, 1. Halbjahr 2026 . Source for the half-year totals, the jobs figure, the sector split and the large-firm rise.
- Statistisches Bundesamt: Gewerbemeldungen und Insolvenzen . Source for the official monthly filing counts and the note on reporting lag.
- IWH-Insolvenztrend (Halle Institute for Economic Research) . Source for the monthly series in the chart: filings and jobs affected, published month by month in its press releases.
- Creditreform: Insolvenzen in Deutschland, Jahr 2025 . Source for the 2025 annual totals and the large-employer breakdown.
- InsolvenzTracker: Insolvenzwelle 2026 . Source for the full-year forecast range.
- Per-case sources are linked inside each row of the ledger.
Corrections and missing cases welcome. If you know of a German insolvency with a published headcount that belongs here, tell me and I will add it.