When is the best time to form a company?

You’ve got a great idea for a business, you’ve done all the necessary research and you’ve decided on the business structure to move forward with. But wait, it’s August – everyone is on holiday, that can’t possibly be a good time to start a company, can it? Well let’s take a look.

When you study the UK’s start-up statistics for 2015, two months immediately stand out as low performing in terms of numbers;

August – 44,136 incorporations

December – 40,492 incorporations

The incorporation figures for 2014 tell the same story, with December and August taking last and second last place respectively. So why this pattern? Are December and August the Bermuda Triangle of incorporation months? And if they are, when’s the safest time to form?

Of course it’s a lot simpler than that. December and August are unpopular months for incorporations because, as we highlighted in the introduction, most people are on their Christmas/Summer holiday, when the idea of starting up is the furthest thing from their minds. Plus if they aren’t in holiday mode and did want to start a company in this period, it’s very possible that they’re using an accountant who could be on holiday themselves.

Concurrently, over the past two years (2014 and 2015) we’ve seen a large jump in incorporations when comparing September with August. There’s a lot of simplification going on here but can this increase be put down to a ‘holiday is over, now I mean business’ attitude?

Likewise, there’s a significant increase when comparing January with December, can we attribute this to ‘new year, new me’?

To answer the question, there isn’t a ‘good’ time of the year to start up and there isn’t a ‘bad’ time either. Any trends we see in incorporation statistics can most likely be put down to human nature.

The only good time is when you’re ready (and the only bad time is when you’re not). It all depends on your own circumstances. If you think you’re prepared to run your own business, you should go for it and strike while the iron is hot.

Are you ready to start your business adventure? Take a look at our guide on how to register a company name.