Crafts: nearly 300,000 businesses will be created in 2025, a record

The craft industry confirmed its dynamism in 2025 with nearly 300,000 businesses created in France, a record figure up 5% over one year, according to the barometer of the Higher Institute of Trades (ISM) and the insurer Maaf published Thursday. After having identified 278,700 creations of craft businesses in 2024 (up 11%), the ISM-Maaf barometer counts 292,000 new craft companies in 2025. In six years, the number of businesses created in the sector has increased by 44%.

“Entrepreneurship in crafts sets a new record. Now one in four businesses created is attached to crafts, confirming the driving role of the sector for French entrepreneurship,” underline the ISM and Maaf in a press release. This barometer does not, however, specify the number of business closures in the sector (failures, cancellations). According to another ISM barometer devoted to failures, craft, commercial and liberal businesses recorded a record number of failures in 2025, of 40,550 (+ 3%).

Concerning creations, individual companies represent 78% of openings, an increase of 6%. Company creations also continue to progress (+1%). By sector, services account for the largest increase (+8%), followed by food (+7%) and manufacturing (+6%). Construction crafts, on the other hand, are down 2%. The activities which concentrate the greatest number of creations over a year are building cleaning (53,620 companies created), beauty treatments (18,500) and taxis/VTC (17,990). The dynamic is generally positive in all regions, except Corsica (-4%).

The transfer of businesses, however, remains a point of vigilance, according to this barometer: transfers of business assets are stagnating, while more than one in four craft managers is over 55 and planning to retire in the coming years. Business sales fell by 3% in services and by 1% in food. The drop is 19% in beauty care. The most structural slowdown concerns bakeries (-2% this year and -6% since 2021) and hairdressing salons (-11% in 2025 and -11% since 2021). The barometer data comes from INSEE national files and texts published in the Official Bulletin of Civil and Commercial Announcements (Bodacc), processed and used by the ISM with the support of the Maaf.