UK Online Seller Business Index.
A quarterly index of the UK incorporated online-retail economy, derived from Companies House data (SIC 47910) and the ONS internet-retail sales series. Company births, deaths and net change from 2021 to 2026. No survey estimates: every number is computed from a named official source.
Last updated: 2026-07-15. Next refresh: Q4 2026 (quarterly cadence). Published under Open Government Licence v3.0.
UK incorporated online-retail companies (SIC 47910)
Source: Companies House Advanced Search API. Retrieved 2026-07-15.
Companies with SIC 47910 (retail via mail order or internet) showing active status on the Companies House register as at 2026-07-15.
All SIC 47910 companies dissolved at any point since the register began. This is a cumulative stock, not a rate.
Active plus dissolved. 40.2% of all SIC 47910 companies ever registered are still active. See methodology note on this figure.
The 40.2% figure is a register snapshot, NOT a cohort survival rate. It mixes companies of all ages and is inflated by recently formed companies that have not yet had time to fail. See the methodology section.
50,768 SIC 47910 companies incorporated in 2021
The four quarters of 2021 produced the largest single-year incorporation wave in the SIC 47910 series. True cohort survival curves (how many of that 2021 intake are still active today) require cross-referencing individual company incorporation and dissolution dates from the Companies House bulk snapshot. That analysis is planned for the next update. The quarterly births and deaths table below shows the aggregate dissolution wave that followed: SIC 47910 dissolutions climbed from around 6,000 to 7,000 per quarter in 2022 to over 21,000 per quarter in 2025.
Source: Companies House Advanced Search API, incorporated_from/to filters. Retrieved 2026-07-15.
Quarterly incorporations and dissolutions: SIC 47910
2021-Q1 to 2026-Q2. Source: Companies House Advanced Search API (incorporated_from/to and dissolved_from/to filters). Retrieved 2026-07-15.
| Quarter | Incorporations | Dissolutions | Net |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-Q1 | 15,475 | 5,427 | +10,048 |
| 2021-Q2 | 14,301 | 3,875 | +10,426 |
| 2021-Q3 | 10,776 | 6,124 | +4,652 |
| 2021-Q4 | 10,216 | 6,530 | +3,686 |
| 2022-Q1 | 12,152 | 7,670 | +4,482 |
| 2022-Q2 | 12,903 | 8,028 | +4,875 |
| 2022-Q3 | 14,198 | 8,636 | +5,562 |
| 2022-Q4 | 14,430 | 8,212 | +6,218 |
| 2023-Q1 | 18,091 | 9,681 | +8,410 |
| 2023-Q2 | 19,378 | 10,955 | +8,423 |
| 2023-Q3 | 22,767 | 10,940 | +11,827 |
| 2023-Q4 | 23,880 | 10,972 | +12,908 |
| 2024-Q1 | 22,883 | 12,959 | +9,924 |
| 2024-Q2 | 19,937 | 12,955 | +6,982 |
| 2024-Q3 | 16,599 | 14,963 | +1,636 |
| 2024-Q4 | 15,154 | 20,238 | -5,084 |
| 2025-Q1 | 17,762 | 21,681 | -3,919 |
| 2025-Q2 | 20,162 | 19,677 | +485 |
| 2025-Q3 | 22,346 | 21,780 | +566 |
| 2025-Q4 | 17,778 | 15,965 | +1,813 |
| 2026-Q1 | 17,505 | 17,441 | +64 |
| 2026-Q2 | 17,683 | 12,585 | +5,098 |
Incorporations: all companies incorporating with SIC 47910 in that quarter regardless of current status. Dissolutions: companies whose dissolution date falls within that quarter. Net = incorporations minus dissolutions.
Formation-year cohort survival: SIC 47910
Companies incorporated in each calendar year, tracked to their current register status. Survival at 1, 2 and 3 years = the share of that cohort not formally dissolved by 31 December of the formation year plus 1, 2 or 3. Source: Companies House Advanced Search API (company_status, incorporated_from/to and dissolved_to filters). Retrieved 2026-07-15.
| Formed in | Ever registered | Still active | Still active (%) | Survival at 1yr | at 2yr | at 3yr |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 18,685 | 5,190 | 27.8% | 78.8% | 57.9% | 47.1% |
| 2019 | 22,420 | 6,783 | 30.3% | 86.9% | 55.3% | 46.6% |
| 2020 | 44,685 | 10,397 | 23.3% | 78.7% | 49.6% | 38% |
| 2021 | 50,699 | 11,198 | 22.1% | 71.2% | 40.8% | 31.6% |
| 2022 | 53,633 | 10,721 | 20% | 68.5% | 32% | 23.4% |
| 2023 | 84,085 | 17,797 | 21.2% | 65.4% | 26.6% | · |
| 2024 | 74,558 | 25,865 | 34.7% | 56.6% | · | · |
The denominator is active plus dissolved companies only; companies in liquidation, administration or live strike-off proceedings sit in neither bucket, so recent-cohort figures are slightly overstated. Formal dissolution also lags actual trading closure, typically by months. Compare cohorts at the same age (the survival columns), not on the raw still-active percentage, which is inflated for young cohorts.
ONS demand-side overlay: internet sales as a proportion of all retail
Series J4MC from the ONS Retail Sales Index (DRSI). Annual figures, seasonally adjusted. Used as a demand-side external anchor against company incorporation rates. Retrieved 2026-07-15.
ONS J4MC, dataset DRSI. 2025 annual average.
| Year | Internet retail share (%) |
|---|---|
| 2007 | 3.4% |
| 2008 | 4.9% |
| 2009 | 6.2% |
| 2010 | 7.3% |
| 2011 | 8.3% |
| 2012 | 9.3% |
| 2013 | 10.4% |
| 2014 | 11.3% |
| 2015 | 12.5% |
| 2016 | 14.7% |
| 2017 | 16.3% |
| 2018 | 18% |
| 2019 | 19.2% |
| 2020 | 28.1% |
| 2021 | 30.7% |
| 2022 | 26.6% |
| 2023 | 26.7% |
| 2024 | 27.1% |
| 2025 | 27.4% |
The 2021 peak (30.7%) reflects lockdown-driven online spending, after the jump to 28.1% in 2020. The subsequent partial reversal reflects in-store recovery. 2025 at 27.4% shows internet retail settling a few points below that peak as a share of all retail sales.
Secondary SIC series (labelled separately, never blended)
Two adjacent codes tracked as separate series. Neither is added to the SIC 47910 headline. Source: Companies House Advanced Search API. Retrieved 2026-07-15.
Seasonality and the long-run formation trend
A second, independently-pulled monthly Companies House series (Jul 2015 to Apr 2026), used here to surface month-of-year seasonality and a longer-run decade view than the quarterly table above. Figures on this section will not tie out exactly to the quarterly table: the two series come from separate live pulls of the same underlying register using slightly different date windows, not a single reconciled source.
From 10,316 to 78,065 incorporations a year (7.6×).
-13.4% year-on-year to Apr 2026.
Averaged across every complete year in the series, SIC 47910 incorporations peak in January and fall to their lowest in December, a "new year, new business" pattern typical of a low-barrier-to-entry sector.
Source: Companies House Advanced Search API, monthly incorporated_from/to filters, SIC 47910. Excludes provisional months (2026-05, 2026-06). Retrieved 2026-07-23.
What this index measures
- Limited companies and LLPs with SIC code 47910 as primary or secondary
- Corporate Amazon FBA sellers, Shopify merchants, and marketplace operators that have incorporated
- The growth and contraction of that incorporated layer over time
- Aggregate births and deaths by quarter (not attributed to cohorts in v1)
- Sole traders and individuals selling via marketplaces (the side-hustle layer)
- Companies filing under product-specific retail SIC codes (e.g. 47410 computers, 47640 sports goods) rather than the generic 47910
- Legacy catalogue or mail-order firms that carry SIC 47910 but trade primarily offline
- Dormant companies retained at Companies House but not trading
Tax and compliance context for online sellers
Corporate churn in the online-retail sector tracks predictable tax and compliance pressure points: VAT registration thresholds reached on gross marketplace payout (not net settlement), platform reporting making HMRC visibility near-total, and the genuine cost difference between sole trader and limited company structures as margins compress.
VAT on marketplace fees, deemed-supplier rules, and settlement reconciliation for FBA and FBM sellers.
DTC merchant tax: VAT on UK and EU sales, bookkeeping for multi-currency payouts, and the sole-trader vs Ltd decision.
eBay, Etsy, Vinted, TikTok Shop: platform reporting obligations, the trading allowance, and when you cross into formal self-assessment.
Customs, import VAT under the £135 consignment rule, COGS treatment, and the structural risks specific to high-volume low-margin models.
VAT registration on gross marketplace revenue, the deemed-supplier mechanism, and quarterly returns for multi-platform sellers.
Matching platform payouts to gross sales, returns, fees, and reserve holds across Amazon, eBay and Shopify Payments.
A recurring driver of seller closures: the VAT threshold on gross turnover
The UK VAT registration threshold is measured against your gross taxable turnover, not the net payout you receive from a marketplace. For Amazon and eBay sellers in particular, gross sales include the platform's fees and fulfilment costs before any deduction: the settlement amount that hits your bank account is materially lower than the figure HMRC uses to determine whether you must register.
The quarterly dissolution data above shows SIC 47910 company deaths climbing from around 6,000 to 8,000 per quarter in 2021 to 2022 to over 21,000 per quarter in 2025. One structural driver: incorporated sellers who did not anticipate crossing the VAT threshold face back-registration obligations, interest and penalties that compress margins to the point where dissolution becomes rational.
Methodology
Caveats
- Active count is a Companies House register snapshot, NOT a survival rate. It is currently-active-on-register as at the pull date and mixes companies of all ages.
- SIC 47910 captures some legacy catalogue and mail-order companies that pre-date internet retail. Flows (quarterly births and deaths) are more reliable than absolute counts.
- Marketplace-only sole traders (the Vinted/eBay side-hustle layer) never appear in Companies House. This index measures the incorporated layer only.
- Formal dissolution typically lags actual trading closure by weeks to months for voluntary strikes-off.
- The secondary SIC series (47990, 46900) are tracked and reported separately and are never blended silently into the SIC 47910 headline.
- 2020-Q2 dissolutions are not shown as a series start point because Companies House suspended compulsory strike-off under the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 (April to September 2020), making that period anomalously low.
Data licences: Companies House data is published under the Open Government Licence v3.0. ONS data is published under the same licence.
Update cadence: quarterly. Last updated: 2026-07-15. Next scheduled refresh: Q4 2026 (quarterly cadence).
Cite as: UK Online Seller Business Index, derived from Companies House Advanced Search API (SIC 47910) and ONS J4MC/DRSI series. Published under OGL v3.0. Data pulled 2026-07-15.
Download the quarterly churn and seasonality data (CSV)
See the companion Online Seller Survival Index (ONS retail enterprise survival)
Frequently asked questions
What does the UK Online Seller Business Index measure?
It tracks UK-incorporated companies registered with SIC code 47910 (retail sale via mail order houses or via internet), the primary code for Amazon FBA sellers, Shopify merchants, and marketplace operators that have incorporated as a limited company. The index reports active and dissolved counts, quarterly incorporations and dissolutions, formation-year cohort survival, and an ONS demand-side overlay (internet retail's share of all UK retail sales), all derived from official Companies House and ONS data.
Why do online-retail company dissolutions keep rising?
SIC 47910 quarterly dissolutions climbed from around 6,000 to 8,000 per quarter in 2021 to 2022 to over 21,000 per quarter through 2025. Three structural drivers recur: the VAT registration threshold is measured on gross marketplace turnover (not net settlement payout), so sellers can cross it without realising; platform reporting under the UK's DAC7 rules has made incorporated sellers' transaction data visible to HMRC since January 2024; and thin margins in a fast-churning, low-barrier-to-entry sector leave little room to absorb a compliance shock.
Is there a seasonal pattern to online-retail company formations?
Yes. Averaged across every complete year in the Companies House incorporation series, SIC 47910 formations peak in January and are lowest in December, a 'new year, new business' pattern consistent with a low-barrier-to-entry sector where forming a company is often the first step taken alongside a New Year resolution to start selling online. See the seasonality chart below for the exact monthly averages.
How does this relate to the Online Seller Survival Index?
This index counts Companies House limited companies and LLPs specifically (SIC 47910), reporting incorporations, dissolutions, and a register-snapshot active rate. Our companion Online Seller Survival Index uses a different ONS dataset (enterprise survival by broad industry group, including sole traders and partnerships) to show what proportion of a birth-year retail cohort is still trading after 1 to 5 years. Read together: this index shows an accelerating incorporated-seller churn wave since 2022, and the survival index shows that retail as a whole survives at a below-average rate over five years even before that churn wave.
Platform reporting: the HMRC lens on seller data
Since 1 January 2024, digital platforms (Amazon, eBay, Vinted, Etsy and others) have been required to report seller transaction data to HMRC under the UK's implementation of the OECD DAC7 rules. The incorporated-seller population tracked by this index is now systematically visible to HMRC in a way it was not before.
Running an online retail business?
The incorporated-seller economy is more visible to HMRC than it has ever been. Platform reporting, gross-turnover VAT thresholds and the bookkeeping gap between settlement payout and taxable revenue are the three issues that drive the most avoidable costs for incorporated sellers.