According to the 5th edition of the study "Entrepreneurship in Portugal" prepared by Informa D&B, which analyses trends in the creation of new companies in the last decade, in 2023 close to 50 thousand companies were created, 16,000 more than in 2013.

New companies are also changing their configuration, with the transport, real estate, and construction sectors showing greater entrepreneurial dynamism.

Due to these trends, the ranking of company formation by sector has changed, as 10 years ago, retail was the sector where the most companies were created, but at the end of 2023, it fell to seventh place.

The wholesale, industrial, and retail sectors saw the annual average number of business creations decline in the last decade, according to the study.

In the same period, transport rose from 11th place to second place.

The highest average annual growth in terms of business creation occurs in the transport, real estate and construction sectors, with "more than half of the growth concentrated in three activities in these sectors".

In this sense, the growth of entrepreneurship in the transport sector is due to the activity of occasional passenger transport in light vehicles, which was the one that grew the most in the decade, especially from 2018, with the entry into force of the TVDE legal regime (individual transport of passengers in an unmarked vehicle).

"This growth caused the transport sector to go from 949 companies created in 2013 to almost 6,000 in 2023", according to the work.

Real estate activities saw a "huge growth" in the creation of companies, especially until 2018, and especially in the buying and selling activity.

In 2023, companies created in this sector almost tripled compared to those that existed 10 years earlier.

In construction, in turn, more than double the number of companies were created in 2023 than in 2013, with construction and building promotion activity standing out in this sector, which represents 78% of the sector's total growth.

The study also states that the Greater Lisbon region accounts for 33% of the total number of new companies created in 2023, with the North region in second place, with 30%.

The Setúbal Peninsula and Algarve registered great growth in the decade, highlighting the strong contribution of occasional passenger transport in light vehicles, in which new transport companies in these regions increased 16 and 11 times, respectively.

According to the study, new companies are smaller and have less capital.

In this sense, 56% of companies created in 2023 were single-person, 3 percentage points more than in 2013.