Unregistered businesses in the North East region
For our headline business counts data at the North East LEP we use the UK business counts, as this provides the most comprehensive database of UK businesses. However, one of the drawbacks of the UK business counts is that it only includes registered business, i.e businesses that are either registered for VAT or PAYE.
The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy also publishes regional estimates of the unregistered business population. This release shows that in fact, there are more unregistered businesses in the North East region than registered businesses. Therefore, the UK business counts are only a partial picture.
By nature of being unregistered these businesses are all small, as employing individuals or increasing their turnover to £85,000 annual would mean they would have to register for either PAYE or VAT. Large businesses are only 0.2% of the business population in the region when including unregistered businesses, but they still account for 33% of regional employment and 40% of regional turnover.
The release also shows that SMEs account for a greater proportion of regional employment and turnover in the North East than the national average. 67% of employment in the North East and 60% of the turnover in 2022 was from SMEs, compared to 60% of employment and 50% of turnover in England.
