Insolvency statistics (up to 31 July 2022)
We previously published the following series of insolvency statistics to assist in determining the level of company insolvency in Australia. They included:
- Series 1 Companies entering external administration, January 1999 – July 2022
- Series 1A Companies entering external administration – by industry, July 2013 – July 2022
- Series 1B Notification of companies entering external administration – Weekly (last published to September 2022)
- Series 2 Insolvency appointments, January 1999 – July 2022
- Series 2A: Detail of insolvency appointments, July 2017 – July 2022
- Series 2B: Notification of all external administration and controller appointments – Weekly (last published to September 2022)
- Summary analysis of Series 1 and 2 statistics (last published to December quarter 2018)
Notes on historical Series 1, 1A, 1B, 2, 2A and 2B
- You can download Series 1 and 2 statistics from our website in Excel workbook format as a time series from January 1999 to July 2022, with static tables for each region and by appointment type, in month, quarter and financial year, to assist analysis.
- There are no reliable statistics available pre-January 1999.
- Series 1A statistics are an expansion of Series 1 and published from July 2013 to July 2022 with tables by region and industry or appointment type and industry. Industry information aligns with the 2006 Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC) divisions indicated by the external administrator or controller, included on Form 505 since July 2013 and updated in May 2021.
- Series 2A published from July 2017 to July 2022, with a data set for each financial year 2017–18, 2018–19, 2019–20, 2020–21 and 2021–22. The data set contained the following detail:
- ACN and organisation name
- the person appointed (lodging party only, so will not list joint appointees), or company appointed (possible for controllers or managing controllers only)
- appointment date
- industry type
- state of incorporation
- appointment type, and
- document number and form type (notifying ASIC of the appointment).
- As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, ASIC began releasing weekly statistics of companies entering external administration and controller appointments for the first time (Series 1B) in April 2020. In March 2021, we began releasing weekly statistics of all external administration and controller appointments (Series 2B). Both Series 1B and 2B provided weekly, rolling 12-month and financial year-to-date statistics compared to the previous financial year and base level (average of FY 2017, FY 2018 and FY 2019 external administration and controller appointments).
We prefer the use of Series 1, 1A and 1B statistics when explaining trends in insolvency because they are a more accurate measure of corporate insolvency and comparison, avoiding the double-counting reflected in Series 2 statistics.