CREDITSAFE / US ZOMBIE COMPANIES
Night of theliving debt.
Inside America’s zombie companies
Some US companies look alive on paper but show none of the activity you’d expect from a healthy business. We researched 13.3 million US companies with trade history to find them.
Around
1 in 16US companies with trade history is a zombie.
02 / THE DEFINITION MEET THE UNDEAD
Alive on paper.
Silent in the data.
Zombies are companies that did once trade but have stopped, without ever being laid to rest. Using Creditsafe’s trade payment data and Secretary of State (SoS) records, we found companies that:
- Have gone quietNo payments or live balance in our trade payment data for the last 24 months.
- Are still registeredHaven’t been dissolved, and hold an Active SoS registration.
- Haven’t filedHave no open Chapter 7 bankruptcy case on file.
How we counted them
Our base is all 13,300,660 US headquartered companies that have ever had trade data reported. Of these, 852,113 meet our zombie definition. Zombie status shows a 24-month gap in payments, not closure, so the figure is likely to include legitimate businesses that don’t use trade credit, as well as holding companies and pass-through entities. It doesn’t mean a company has failed or is fraudulent.
852,113 registered zombies, or 6.4% of the 13.3 million registered companies in our database. In the UK, it’s roughly 1 in 25.
One highlighted silhouette out of 16 illustrates the rounded proportion.
Who’s most at risk? ↓03 / THE RISK WHERE ZOMBIES GATHER
Small teams.
Thin profiles.
Zombie rates are far from even. The smallest businesses, a handful of sectors and one corner of the country are where the undead cluster.
Companies with unknown employee counts or sectors also carry above-average zombie rates. A thin data profile and zombie status often go hand in hand.
04 / UK VS US AN OUTBREAK ON BOTH SIDES OF THE POND
Two countries.
One outbreak.
Zombie companies aren’t just an American problem. Around 1 in 25 UK businesses and 1 in 16 US businesses have gone quiet, and in both countries small companies with low revenue are most at risk.
Download the full report for the complete breakdown:
- Zombie rates by registration status, employee count, sales and industry
- Regional hotspots: why the Mid-Atlantic stands out
- How fraudsters exploit dormant business identities
- 5 key takeaways: don’t let credit risk come back to haunt you
| 🇬🇧 UK | 🇺🇸 US | |
|---|---|---|
| Overall zombie rate | 4.0%, or 1 in 25 | 6.4%, or 1 in 16 |
| Low-revenue businesses | 11.0% turning over £0–£250k | 6.0% earning under $500k |
| High-revenue businesses | 3.1% turning over £25m+ | <1% earning over $5m |
| Smallest businesses | 3.46% with 1–9 employees | 5.54% with 1–4 employees |
A single indicator can’t tell you if a company is a zombie. Looking at longer-term financial and payment behavior, rather than relying on the most recent data, can reveal the real risks.
UK and US datasets differ in methodology and available measures. Comparisons use the closest equivalent data available.
Trading overseas? Check an international company for signs of life. Creditsafe covers more than 430 million businesses across 200 countries.
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