In 2021, from the 1 359 035 active enterprises in Portugal, 187 036 were born in that year, reflecting a growth of 21.2% over the previous year (-21.4% in 2020), close to 2019 level (-4.7%).

The proportion of enterprises surviving 1 year after birth stood at 75.7% (+1.1 p.p. compared to 2020 and -0.4 p.p. vis-à-vis 2019) and those surviving 3 years after birth corresponded to 49.1% (+4.9 p.p. compared to the previous year; +2.9 p.p. in relation to 2019).

From the 468 746 non-financial companies in activity in 2021, 38 878 had started activity in that year, +9.2% compared to 2020, but still lower by 15.4% compared to 2019, corresponding to a birth rate of 8.3% (+0.4 p.p. in relation to 2020, but -2.2 p.p. compared to 2019).

The number of deaths of non-financial companies is estimated to have been 17 449, minus 24.8% compared to 2020 and less 25.7% vis-à-vis 2019, corresponding to a mortality rate of 3.7% (-1.4 p.p. to that verified in 2020 and -1.7 p.p. compared to 2019).

In 2021 there were 5 349 high-growth companies, minus 6.6% from the previous year (-23.1% compared to 2019), accounting for 10.7% of all non-financial companies with 10 or more employees, 16.0% of persons employed, 13.7% of turnover, and 15.5% of gross value added (GVA).

The number of high-growth young non-financial companies, referred to as gazelles, continued to decline in 2021 (-3.8%, after -13.6% between 2019 and 2020) and amounted to 554 companies. However, all these companies together accounted for a GVA of EUR 840 million, more EUR 58 million, corresponding to 1.1% of the total number of non-financial companies with 10 or more employees (-0.1 p.p. compared to the previous year; identical weight compared to 2019).