- Companies House Advanced Search API
- Snapshot date: 24 August 2026
Classification: SIC Code 96020 (Hairdressing and other beauty treatment)
Total Companies: 158,433 (every status, full history since 1909)
Analysis Date: August 2026
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This tracker analyses every company ever registered under SIC code 96020 in the UK, using the complete Companies House historical register rather than a currently-active-only snapshot. It was built to independently test claims made in a August 2026 industry whitepaper (SmartSearch, "The High Street Laundromat") that short lifespans and shared registered addresses indicate widespread shell-company activity in this sector.
Total Companies
Every status, since 1909
Currently Active
49.2% of full register
Dissolved
Median lifespan: 755 days
Shell-Pattern Window
Fall in claimed 170-194 day shell lifespan
Key Findings
Lifespan (dissolved companies):
- Median lifespan: 755 days (~2.1 years)
- Only 486 companies (0.61%) fall inside the 170-194 day window a recent industry whitepaper used to characterise "suspected shell" activity in this sector
- 2,519 companies (3.17%) dissolved within 194 days of incorporation — the broader end of that same claimed window
Address clustering:
- Short-lived companies (≤194 days) are LESS likely to share an address with 3+ other companies (10.1%) than longer-lived dissolved companies (15.7%) — the opposite of what a shell-formation pattern would predict
- The largest address clusters in this sector are well-known, mass-market company-formation-agent addresses used by tens of thousands of companies across every UK sector — not specific to hairdressing
Formation trend:
- Incorporations grew 133% from 2016-18 (20,377) to 2023-25 (47,417) — real, sustained growth, consistent with genuine post-pandemic sector expansion
1. SECTOR COMPOSITION
Total Companies by Status
| Status | Count | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Active | 78,005 | 49.2% |
| Dissolved | 79,549 | 50.2% |
| Liquidation | 873 | 0.6% |
| Other (voluntary arrangement / converted-closed) | 6 | <0.1% |
| TOTAL | 158,433 | 100% |
Source: Companies House Advanced Search API, 24 August 2026. This is the full historical register — a snapshot limited to currently-active companies alone would show a much higher "active rate" simply by excluding every company that has already dissolved, which is why the figure here (49.2%) differs substantially from active-only extracts.
2. COMPANY LIFESPAN
A recent industry whitepaper (SmartSearch, "The High Street Laundromat," August 2026) characterised suspected shell companies in high-street sectors including hairdressing as having an average lifespan of 170 to 194 days. This section tests that claim directly against the full hairdressing and beauty register.
Lifespan Distribution (Dissolved Companies)
| Lifespan Bucket | Count | % of Dissolved Companies |
|---|---|---|
| 0-194 days (claimed shell window) | 2,519 | 3.17% |
| 195-365 days | 3,415 | 4.30% |
| 1-2 years | 32,832 | 41.28% |
| 2-3 years | 14,294 | 17.97% |
| 3-5 years | 11,206 | 14.09% |
| 5-10 years | 9,883 | 12.43% |
| 10+ years | 5,400 | 6.79% |
Source: Companies House Advanced Search API, incorporation and dissolution dates, all 79,549 dissolved SIC 96020 companies with valid date pairs.
Testing the Shell-Lifespan Claim
- Median lifespan across all dissolved companies: 755 days (~2.1 years) — well short of a multi-year average, but this reflects hairdressing being a genuinely high-churn, low-capital sector generally, not evidence of shell activity on its own
- Companies falling exactly inside the claimed 170-194 day shell window: 486 (0.61%) of all dissolved companies
- Companies dissolved within 194 days (the upper bound of the claimed window): 2,519 (3.17%)
A short lifespan by itself is not evidence of wrongdoing — most short-lived hairdressing companies are ordinary small businesses that didn't survive. This section tests whether the specific lifespan pattern described in third-party shell-company research is visible at scale in this sector's own register. On lifespan alone, that specific pattern accounts for a small minority of dissolutions.
3. FORMATION TRENDS
New Incorporations by Year
| Year | New Incorporations |
|---|---|
| 2016 | 4,849 |
| 2017 | 6,682 |
| 2018 | 8,846 |
| 2019 | 10,638 |
| 2020 | 13,614 |
| 2021 | 12,552 |
| 2022 | 14,705 |
| 2023 | 15,956 |
| 2024 | 15,614 |
| 2025 | 15,847 |
| 2026 (through 24 Aug) | 9,818 |
Source: Companies House Advanced Search API, incorporation date field, full historical register including subsequently-dissolved companies. All figures are exact counts, not estimates.
Growth Comparison
- 2016-2018 total incorporations: 20,377
- 2023-2025 total incorporations: 47,417
- Growth: 133%
This is real, sustained growth, broadly consistent with genuine post-pandemic expansion in self-employed and salon-based beauty work — not, on its own, evidence of a shell-registration surge.
4. ADDRESS CLUSTERING
If short-lived companies in this sector were disproportionately shell registrations, they should cluster at a small number of formation-agent addresses more than genuine businesses do. This section tests that directly.
Address Sharing by Lifespan Group
| Group | Companies | Share Address with 3+ Others |
|---|---|---|
| Short-lived dissolved (≤194 days) | 2,519 | 10.1% |
| Longer-lived dissolved (>194 days) | 77,030 | 15.7% |
Source: Companies House Advanced Search API, registered office address field, exact string match.
Longer-lived dissolved companies cluster at shared addresses MORE than short-lived ones do — the opposite of what a formation-agent shell-farming pattern would predict. The addresses most represented among short-lived companies are large, well-known mass-market company-formation-agent addresses (used by tens of thousands of companies across every UK sector, not specific to hairdressing) — standard registered-office-service usage, not a sector-specific signature.
5. MONTHLY UPDATE CADENCE
This is a live, monthly-updated tracker. Each month, this page reports the change since the last snapshot: new incorporations, newly dissolved companies, and new liquidations, sector-wide.
Next update: late September 2026, once a full month's incorporation and dissolution activity has been captured from Companies House. The intent is a plain, verifiable public counter — not a projection or a model — that anyone can check against the underlying register themselves.
6. METHODOLOGY & DATA SOURCES
Primary Data Source
- Companies House Advanced Search API
- Snapshot date: 24 August 2026
- Filter: SIC Code 96020 only
- Total records: 158,433 — every status, complete history since 1909
Why This Differs From the Company Demographics Page
This page and the Company Demographics Analysis page draw from the same underlying Companies House register and will show consistent totals, but this page focuses specifically on testing shell-company lifespan and address-clustering claims made about the sector, while the demographics page covers broader sector composition, regional distribution, and company age.
What This Data Shows
- Number of limited companies, all statuses, full history
- Company status, incorporation and dissolution dates
- Registered addresses
What This Data Doesn't Show
- Any information about the actual conduct, ownership, or intent behind individual companies
- Financial transaction data — this page cannot and does not attempt to verify any financial-scale claims made elsewhere about shell company activity
- Sole traders or partnerships (not included in Companies House)
Verification
- All data directly from Companies House official source
- No sampling or estimation — complete historical dataset, every status
- Reproducible by anyone with Companies House API access