Compulsory winding-up applications rise to 15-year high in 2025
The number of business cessations is the third-highest since 1990
[SINGAPORE] The number of compulsory winding-up applications and the number of companies ordered to liquidate reached a 15-year high in 2025, data from the Ministry of Law (MinLaw) showed.
Five-year data from the ministry revealed that, as at November 2025, the number of bankruptcy orders made was also the highest since 2020.
There were 492 applications filed for compulsory winding up in 2025, marking a 23 per cent rise from the 399 applications filed in 2024.
Winding-up applications can be presented to the High Court by a company itself, its creditors, owners, liquidator, judicial manager or the Minister for Law.
In 2025, 392 companies were compulsorily wound up, a 27.7 per cent increase from 307 the year before.
The number of applications and liquidations in this context was the highest in the 2011-to-2025 period recorded by MinLaw.
The common grounds for a company to be wound up by the court include an inability to pay off its debts, and if it is just and equitable that the company be wound up.
Formations and cessations
Data from the Department of Statistics, meanwhile, showed that the number of business cessations in 2025 was the third-highest since 1990 at 60,445, coming in behind the peak of 63,406 in 2005 and the second-highest number of 60,746 in 2016.
The number of cessations in 2024 was 55,318.
The statistics include closures voluntarily made by owners and those by creditors without going through court proceedings.
Among industries, wholesale trade topped the cessation numbers at 9,980. Food and beverage (F&B) services had the fifth-most cessations, at 3,074, contrary to wider perceptions against the backdrop of high-profile closures such as that of Twelve Cupcakes.
There were 3,048 cessations in F&B services in 2024. The record-high figure for the industry was in 2005, when there were 3,352 cessations.
Business formations hit a record high of 78,146 in 2025; this, too, was led by wholesale trade.
F&B services contributed 4,103 formations – the highest in 36 years. After accounting for the 3,074 cessations, there were 1,029 net formations in 2025.
Between 2015 and 2025, there was a net increase of 42 per cent in the number of F&B entities, with formations outpacing cessations in most years, said Minister of State for the Ministry of Trade & Industry Alvin Tan in response to a question in Parliament on Wednesday (Feb 4).
The government does not track the breakdown of cessations between standalone outlets, local chains and foreign ones.
“The food services sector is highly competitive due to low barriers of entry, high product substitutability and rapidly shifting consumer preferences,” said Tan.
Bankruptcies
The number of bankruptcy orders made between January and November 2025, at 1,507, exceeded the figure of 1,232 for 2024 and was the highest since 2020.
December numbers are not yet available.
There were 4,753 bankruptcy applications made in the first 11 months of 2025, compared with 4,925 for the whole of 2024.
A debtor who cannot repay debts of at least S$15,000 could be made bankrupt upon application by himself or by his creditors.
A director of the insolvent Envy group of companies at the heart of the billion-dollar nickel trading scam, Rhiya Lee Si Ye, was among those made bankrupt in 2025.
She had applied for her own bankruptcy less than a fortnight after the High Court ordered that she and eight former directors and employees of the Envy group return almost S$900 million for distribution to the group’s creditors.
Lee’s application showed her debt amount was over S$881.3 million.
