Shops and restaurants: how many companies opened and closed in 2025–2026

In short

In 2025, 2,347 retail companies closed and 1,161 opened: twice as many closures as openings. In 2026 the gap narrowed: 995 closures and 818 openings up to 2 October.

Food service (restaurants, cafés, bars) went the other way. In 2025, 424 companies opened and 345 closed. In 2026, up to 2 October, 284 opened and 144 closed.

All figures come from the State Register, as Datero.md keeps it up to date.

How we counted

• Sector is the primary activity filed in the register: retail trade (CAEM 47, 52 in the old classification) and food service (CAEM 56, 55.3–55.5 in the old one). A company that actually does something other than what it filed is counted by what it filed.
• Opened means registered in the period, closed means struck off the register.
• District is the one in the legal address.
• 2026 data runs to 2 October. Strike-offs reach the register with a delay, sometimes of several months, so 2026 closures will still grow.

Retail

There are 27,543 active companies in the register with retail as their primary activity.

Sole traders close, SRLs open

Of the retail companies that closed in 2025, 56% were sole traders (1,315 of 2,347). Of those that opened, 78% are SRLs (902 of 1,161). 2026 looks the same: 51% of closures are sole traders, 75% of openings are SRLs.

In other words, the number of retail companies falls mainly because of small shops run by sole traders, while newcomers enter the market as SRLs.

Food service

There are 5,344 active food-service companies in the register. Almost all new ones are SRLs: 92% in 2025 (391 of 424) and 91% in 2026.

By district

Half of the active retail companies (51%) and more than half of the food-service ones (56%) are registered in Chișinău.

Retail, top 10 districts by active companies

Among the top ten districts, Cahul lost the most retail companies relative to its size: 109 closures in 2025 against 744 active companies, or 15%. In 2026, four of them gained more retail companies than they lost: Orhei (34 vs 25), Ialoveni (22 vs 18), Strășeni (21 vs 12) and Anenii Noi (18 vs 10).

Food service, top 8 districts

In food service, Cahul is the only one of the top eight districts where more companies closed than opened in 2026: 15 vs 9.

What these figures do not say

The register counts companies, not shops. A chain of 50 shops is one company, and an entrepreneur who closes one company and opens another is counted twice. The figures show who enters and leaves the market, not how many shops and cafés are open on the street.

What striking off a company means, and why it is not the same as bankruptcy, is explained in our guide to liquidated companies. All companies opened and closed in 2026, across every sector, are in the new and struck-off companies report.

For chain owners

If you run several shops or cafés, your question is a different one: which location earns and which is falling behind. Klaro shows net revenue, real margin and how each location compares with the chain, from the till and 1C data.