New statistics reveal the influx of self-employed Ukrainians and Russians within the Czech Republic over the course of 2022 and 2023.
Between 2019 and 2021, 207 Ukrainian entrepreneurs registered a new business per month, while in 2022, the average grew to 710 per month. A similar trend is apparent with Russian entrepreneurs as well, with 63 businesses registered each month in 2022 – an increase from the 51 per month before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
These trends were reflected in recent analysis by the Czech Credit Bureau (CRIF). “The largest number of Ukrainians started business here from last August to November, when more than a thousand entrepreneurs of Ukrainian nationality started their activities every month.
In some months, this was as much as 18 percent of the total number of new entrepreneurs in the Czech Republic. For January and February this year, the monthly average is already lower, i.e. 708, which is still a lot compared to the years before the war,” said Věra Kameníčková, CRIF analyst.
Since March 2022, 15% of new businesses registered were in the manufacturing and construction industries, with nearly a third of these businesses founded and operated by Ukrainian entrepreneurs.
Russian entrepreneurs on the other hand showed a different pattern, with 23% registering businesses in administrative and technical fields, and 14% registering business in the Information and communications field – predominantly as consulting firms.
As revealed by the CRIF analysis, Prague was home to the greatest number of newly registered businesses, hosting 21% of all new businesses registered in the previous year. For Ukrainian and Russian entrepreneurs, these numbers were 35% and 69%, respectively.
After Prague, the Central Bohemian region saw the second highest entrepreneurial growth, with 13% of all businesses registered in the previous year – according to CRIF.
For self-employed Ukrainian and Russian entrepreneurs, it was 14% and 9%, respectively
