---
title: Japan's no-successor bankruptcies hit 264 in six months
description: Tokyo Shoko Research counted 264 no-successor bankruptcies in Japan in H1 2026, a record. In 85.6% the president died or fell ill. What it means for buyers.
image: https://nobusato.jp/hubfs/covers-2026-11/no-successor-bankruptcies-japan-cover-en-2026-10-m.png
---

[Nobu Sato](https://nobusato.jp/en?hsLang=en)

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Japan by the Numbers

In this article

1. [TSR counts it from ¥10 million of debt, as one cause among several](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/no-successor-bankruptcies-japan#s1)
2. [Why almost all of them end in liquidation](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/no-successor-bankruptcies-japan#s2)
3. [Half of Japanese companies have no successor. Which half?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/no-successor-bankruptcies-japan#s3)
4. [If you are thinking of buying your way into Japan](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/no-successor-bankruptcies-japan#s4)
5. [If you work at a small Japanese company](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/no-successor-bankruptcies-japan#s5)

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# Japan's no-successor bankruptcies hit 264 in six months

Above 400 a year since 2022, and 2026 set a half-year record

[Nobu Sato](https://nobusato.jp/en/profile?hsLang=en)7 min read

Contents5

1. [TSR counts it from ¥10 million of debt, as one cause among several](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/no-successor-bankruptcies-japan#s1)
2. [Why almost all of them end in liquidation](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/no-successor-bankruptcies-japan#s2)
3. [Half of Japanese companies have no successor. Which half?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/no-successor-bankruptcies-japan#s3)
4. [If you are thinking of buying your way into Japan](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/no-successor-bankruptcies-japan#s4)
5. [If you work at a small Japanese company](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/no-successor-bankruptcies-japan#s5)

Between January and June 2026, 264 Japanese companies went bankrupt partly because nobody was there to take over. That is the highest first-half count since Tokyo Shoko Research (TSR) started tracking it in 2013. In 85.6% of those cases, the president had died or fallen ill.

So the succession problem in Japan rarely looks like a slow planning failure. It looks like a phone call from the hospital. For a foreign company looking at Japan, that changes both where the opportunity is and where the risk is.

## TSR counts it from ¥10 million of debt, as one cause among several

TSR counts a bankruptcy as 後継者難 (successor difficulty) when the company had liabilities of at least ¥10 million and the absence of a successor was judged to be one of the causes. TSR files it under labor-shortage bankruptcies, next to failed hiring, staff quitting and rising labor costs.

That definition has two consequences. Small closures with debt under ¥10 million are left out. And "one of the causes" means the company may also have had falling sales or heavy borrowing. The missing successor is what made it impossible to keep going.

The annual series looks like this. 234 cases in 2013. 422 in 2022, the first year above 400. Then 430 in 2023 and a record 462 in 2024. In 2025 the count dipped to 454, the first annual fall in six years, but still the second highest ever. TDB keeps its own count under different rules (court proceedings only) and got 503 for 2025. Every count in this post is TSR's, and I don't mix the two series. The 264 in the first half of 2026 beat the previous first-half record of 256, set in 2024.

No-successor bankruptcies have stayed above 400 a year since 2022, and 2026 hit a record 264 in six months

Tokyo Shoko Research (TSR), bankruptcies with liabilities of ¥10 million or more where the lack of a successor was a factor. 2014 to 2021 omitted. One scale throughout

**Calendar year**　January to December

- 2013

  234
- 2022First year above 400

  422
- 2023

  430
- 2024

  462
- 2025First fall in six years, still second highest

  454

**First half**　January to June

- 2024Previous first-half record

  256
- 202685.6% involved death or illness

  264

This is not a spike that came and went. The count stayed in the 400s, and the half-year record fell again.

Figure 1. TSR counted 234 no-successor bankruptcies in 2013 and 422 in 2022, then 462 in 2024 and 454 in 2025; the first half of 2026 set a half-year record of 264, and 85.6% of those cases involved the president’s death or illness.

## Why almost all of them end in liquidation

The trigger is usually the president's body. Of the 264 cases, 119 involved the president's death and 107 the president's poor health. Together that is 226 cases, or 85.6%. The share was 85.5% back in 2022, so the pattern has held for years.

And 96.2% of the cases were straight bankruptcy (破産), meaning liquidation. A restructuring under the Civil Rehabilitation Act needs someone who wants to keep running the business. In a company where only the president knew the bank manager and the big customers, that person is gone the day the president is. 65.5% of the companies had capital under ¥10 million. These are firms where the owner and the company are almost the same thing.

I don't think a written succession plan matters as much as people assume. One practical question matters more. If the president is in hospital tomorrow, who talks to the bank, and who signs the invoices?

## Half of Japanese companies have no successor. Which half?

Teikoku Databank (TDB) publishes the other number people quote. Its 2025 nationwide survey, released in November 2025, put the share of companies with no successor or an undecided one at 50.1%. That is the seventh straight annual decline. The denominator is about 270,000 companies in TDB's database where succession status is known.

"Half" sounds alarming. It also lumps together very different firms. Among companies run by presidents under 30, 83.2% have no successor, which is normal for a young founder. Among presidents aged 80 and over, the figure drops to 22.2%. The real risk is the older owner who still hasn't decided. The headline 50% hides him.

And bankruptcy is only the visible tip. TSR counted 67,210 companies that closed or dissolved voluntarily in 2025, a record. 90.6% of them were run by someone in their 60s or older, and 52.8% were profitable in their last accounts. Compared with the 454 no-successor bankruptcies that year, that is roughly 150 times as many, by my own division. Most Japanese firms without a successor never fail with debt. They just close quietly, often while still making money. I wrote about the age side of this in [the piece on Japanese presidents averaging around 60](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/presidents-average-age-sixty?hsLang=en); this post is the other half of that pair.

## If you are thinking of buying your way into Japan

Tens of thousands of profitable small companies leaving the market every year is a supply of acquisition targets. TDB's same survey shows that 20.6% of new presidents in 2025 came in through M&A and similar routes, behind internal promotion (36.1%) and family succession (32.3%). Buying a company gives you customers, licenses and a working team at once. Given how much Japanese buyers value continuity, as I described in [the post on Japan as a country of century-old companies](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/country-of-century-old-companies?hsLang=en), an acquired name can open doors a new entrant can't.

The same 85.6% should worry a buyer, though. In these firms the president is the core asset. If the seller leaves on closing day, you inherit the gap that bankrupted the others. Hiring a senior leader from outside is slow in Japan, and a replacement for the owner rarely turns up within a few months. So before you negotiate price, ask two things. How long will the owner stay through the handover? And who is the number two that customers already trust?

Many of these targets are also tiny. If your plan needs a company with a sales team, a finance function and a second layer of management, the pool is much smaller than 67,000 a year suggests. That matches the wider picture of [Japan's SME-heavy economy](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/smes-are-99-percent-who-do-you-sell-to?hsLang=en) more broadly.

## If you work at a small Japanese company

A company can be doing fine and still be one hospital visit away from closing. That is what the data says, in plain terms. When you join or stay at an owner-run firm, the president's age, whether a successor is named, and whether anyone besides the president handles the bank and the key accounts are fair things to find out.

It cuts the other way too. If the owner starts looking for a buyer, the people who actually know the customers become the most valuable part of the deal.

A caveat on the numbers. Which bankruptcies count as "successor difficulty" is TSR's judgment from its own research, and most failures have more than one cause. The fiscal first half (April to September 2026) also hit a record, 263 cases, up 23.4%. Whether the full year 2026 beats 2024 is still open as of October 2026. What already looks settled is how the problem arrives. Suddenly, and through one person's health.

データ出典 | Sources | 数据来源

- [Tokyo Shoko Research, No-successor bankruptcies H1 2026 (July 2026): 264 cases, 96.2% bankruptcy, 85.6% death or poor health](https://www.tsr-net.co.jp/data/detail/1203041_1527.html)
- [Tokyo Shoko Research, Fiscal H1 2026 (October 2026): 263 cases, April to September](https://tsr-net.co.jp/data/detail/1203300_1527.html)
- [Tokyo Shoko Research, No-successor bankruptcies 2025 (January 2026): 454 cases](https://www.tsr-net.co.jp/data/detail/1202305_1527.html)
- [Tokyo Shoko Research, No-successor bankruptcies 2024 (January 2025): 462 cases](https://www.tsr-net.co.jp/data/detail/1200868_1527.html)
- [Tokyo Shoko Research, No-successor bankruptcies 2022 (January 2023): 422 cases, 2013 baseline 234](https://www.tsr-net.co.jp/data/detail/1197310_1527.html)
- [Teikoku Databank, Nationwide successor absence survey 2025: 50.1% of about 270,000 companies](https://www.tdb.co.jp/report/economic/20251121-successor25y/)
- [Tokyo Shoko Research, Voluntary closures and dissolutions 2025: 67,210, 52.8% profitable](https://www.tsr-net.co.jp/data/detail/1202284_1527.html)
- [Teikoku Databank, bankruptcy statistics 2025: 503 no-successor bankruptcies (court proceedings only, different method from TSR)](https://www.tdb.co.jp/report/bankruptcy/aggregation/20260113-bankruptcy2025/)

Author

[Nobu Sato](https://nobusato.jp/en/profile?hsLang=en)

Launching in Japan, starting with people and systems. I write about building organizations, sales teams and technology organizations in Japan, in English, Japanese and Chinese.

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