As of the previous September, starting a new company became easier, with the result that in the first three quarters of 2008, there was a considerably increase in the number of new businesses, database service company Opten Kft announced, as reported by gazdasagiradio.hu. Approximately 36,000 companies were founded, or about 2,000 more than over the same period the previous year. The amount of registered changes also jumped, from 180,000 in the first three quarters of 2007 to 496,000 this year, primarily as a result of the obligatory new TEÁOR numbers (a coding system).
The total of liquidations also grew in the third quarter by 12% over the previous year to over 8,000, and Opten expects that this year will be the first time the number goes over 10,000. Also worth noting is that the number of final settlements grew 10% to 7,000. Part of the reason for this is that Hungarian tax authority APEH increased their activities, so that so that 38,000 investigations were launched up to September this year, in comparison to the 26,000 over the same period in 2007.