A Hicks Bay café owner watches the road closure drag into its fifth week, wondering if the season's already lost. As reported by RNZ, businesses fear they won't survive being cut off during peak tourist season. The road might reopen. The business might not.

Zoom out, and that story is repeating itself 836,210 times across New Zealand this year. That's how many businesses closed in 2025, according to Stats NZ data. It's the highest number of business deaths ever recorded in the dataset, which tracks back to 2001. (Source: Stats NZ, business-births-deaths)

The trajectory is brutal. In 2021, 725,370 businesses shut down. By 2024, that had climbed to 779,969. This year it's jumped another 56,000. That's not a natural correction. That's acceleration.

Context matters here. These aren't all failing startups or pandemic casualties. These are cafés losing their summer trade because a road washed out. Retailers watching customers vanish as households tighten budgets. Small operators who looked at their power bill, their supplier invoices, and their bank balance, and made the calculation that staying open costs more than closing does.

The government's focused on surcharge bans and tariff uncertainty. Auckland Business Chamber is optimistic the surcharge ban has stalled, as if 1.5% card fees are the existential threat. Meanwhile, the Trade Minister warns about US tariff uncertainty, which might affect exporters. Both stories matter. Neither explains why more than 2,200 businesses are closing every single day.

The thing about business death data is it doesn't capture intention. Some of these closures are retirements. Some are strategic exits. But 56,000 more closures in one year isn't about demographics. It's about operating conditions becoming unworkable for a growing number of operators.

Look at what's changed between 2021 and now. Interest rates went from record lows to 5.5%. Power bills became the fastest-growing household cost. Supplier costs climbed while customers' budgets tightened. For businesses operating on thin margins, all it takes is one bad season, one unexpected cost, one road closure that lasts too long.

The Hicks Bay businesses cut off by road damage are unusual only in their visibility. They made the news because the cause was obvious and external. The other 836,000 closures are happening quietly, one balance sheet at a time, for reasons that don't fit neatly into a headline.

By the time the road reopens and tourists can reach Hicks Bay again, some of those businesses will be gone. They'll join the count. And next year, unless something fundamental changes in the cost structure facing small operators across New Zealand, that 836,210 figure will look modest.