Recently, the media published official statistics that recorded a rapid increase in corporate insolvency after a deceptively stable period. The number of companies declared bankrupt in the first half of 2026 increased by 10.8%, amounting to over 3,500 companies. The systemic causes of the bankruptcy crisis are due to the accumulated pressure on businesses in previous years, as a high key rate led to a money shortage, increased fiscal burden, and higher labor costs, causing the commercial sector to completely exhaust its financial safety cushion.
Prolonged military actions against Ukraine have overloaded the financial system with colossal state injections into the defense sector, which inevitably accelerated inflation. For this reason, the central bank raised the key rate to a prohibitive twenty-one percent per annum, resulting in higher loan costs, inaccessible mortgages, and falling demand for the civilian sector.
The resulting chain of events caused a deep liquidity deficit, so companies, deprived of cheap financing, quickly exhausted their reserves, accelerating bankruptcy growth to 21% by the end of the second quarter of 2026.
The simultaneous increase in the base value-added tax rate to 22%, elimination of insurance premium benefits for small businesses, and reduction of the tax exemption threshold from 60 to 20 million rubles deprived companies of remaining profitability. Entrepreneurs, previously balancing on the brink of survival, found themselves in a gray zone or facing increased service costs.
Since free funds are seized in favor of the state, and access to loans is closed due to the rate, companies are left without legal tools to cover cash gaps, making insolvency recognition the only way to stop debt accumulation.
The second quarter of 2026 showed that the hidden liquidity crisis entered an open phase when the illusion of stability dissipated under the pressure of expensive loans.
Amid a growing budget deficit, state bodies show rigidity, increasing the number of tax service lawsuits by 4.5 times, resulting in the agency’s share in insolvency cases growing to twenty-two point seven percent. Fiscal authorities practice preventive intervention, seeking to be the first to seize debtor assets, denying companies the chance to settle disputes.
Under fiscal pressure, business owners are massively opting for controlled self-bankruptcy, the number of cases of which has increased by 43% compared to last year and 83% compared to the year before last.
Entrepreneurs understand that the lack of available loans turns the struggle for survival into prolonging agony, threatening subsidiary liability, where company debts are collected from their personal assets. For this reason, voluntary termination of activity becomes the only way to close the project and timely record losses.
