Among the side effects of Italy’s demographic crisis, there is one that can be noticed when traveling through the small towns of the Peninsula: the advance of commercial desertification. Among towns with fewer than 5,000 inhabitants, in one out of five cases it is impossible to find a grocery store, and in two out of five cases it is impossible to come across a tobacconist.
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Negative balance
This is one of the aspects that emerges from the analysis of the Confesercenti Observatory which estimates a further decline for 2026: by the end of the year, the association estimates, 23,934 new retail businesses will be registered with the chamber registers, almost half compared to 43,324 in 2014 (-44.8%) and 5.7% less than in 2025. Against the new openings, 42,849 non-official closures are estimated. The balance between registrations and closures remains negative by 18,915 businesses, worsening compared to 17,874 in 2025. Specifically, there are almost 1.8 closures for every opening. Consequently, the stock is thinning: active retail businesses were 733,703 in June 2025, and by May 2026 they have dropped to 702,938: over 30,000 fewer in eleven months.
Gronchi: increasingly difficult to start a business
“Commerce – comments Nico Gronchi, national president of Confesercenti – has long been the gateway to entrepreneurship: the activity with which entire generations began to start their own businesses, building a piece of the country’s well-being. Today that door is closing: starting a business is increasingly difficult, and without new entries the commercial fabric does not renew and thins out. And the territories become impoverished: fewer commercial services, less work, less wealth generated and therefore also fewer fiscal resources for local administrations.”
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Registrations down in sixteen regions
The slowdown in openings affects almost the entire country because new registrations are expected to decline in sixteen out of twenty regions. The most marked decreases would be recorded in Liguria (-8.3%) and Calabria (-8.1%) but what weighs more on the national balance are the large regions: Lombardy, the country’s largest market, would lose 269 new businesses (-7%), Lazio 155 (-7.1%), Apulia 142 (-6.2%), Sicily 151. Together, the top four regions for registrations — Campania, Lombardy, Apulia, and Lazio — alone concentrate almost half of Italian openings, and all decline. Closures, on the other hand, move little: -0.9% nationally. But in smaller regions, the ratio between closures and new openings reaches the highest values: 2.7 closures for every opening in Valle d’Aosta, 2.5 in Molise, 2.2 in Liguria.
The decline in sectors
As for sectors, the decline is concentrated in non-specialized retail trade which drops from 7,197 to 4,523 new registrations (-37.2%): 2,674 fewer, almost double the overall national decline, which stops at 1,442. The retail of motor vehicles, motorcycles, and related parts also declines (-9.8%, 291 fewer registrations), while food, beverages, and tobacco remain essentially stable (-1.4%).
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