The number of active enterprises in Malaysia increased 2.9% to 755,342 in 2025, from 734,089 a year earlier, with the services sector continuing to dominate business activity, according to the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM).
Services accounted for 595,137 enterprises, or 78.8% of the total, followed by construction with 67,145 enterprises and manufacturing with 60,564.
By location, Kuala Lumpur recorded the highest number of active enterprises at 244,406, followed by Selangor with 201,111 and Johor with 75,661.
The number of newly established enterprises also rose, with enterprise births increasing 9.6% to 60,671 in 2025. This lifted the national enterprise birth rate to 8.0%, from 7.5% in 2024.
Construction recorded the highest birth rate among sectors at 11.4%, involving 7,635 new enterprises, while services registered the largest absolute number of births at 43,328, accounting for more than two-thirds of the national total.
Johor recorded the highest state-level birth rate at 9.5%, followed by Putrajaya at 9.0%, Kuala Lumpur at 8.5% and Selangor at 8.4%, all above the national average.
At the same time, business closures also increased. The enterprise death rate rose to 5.2% in 2025 from 3.9% in 2024, with the number of enterprise deaths climbing to 39,418 from 28,924.
Services accounted for 31,461 enterprise deaths, or 79.8% of the total, with a death rate of 5.3%. Manufacturing recorded the lowest sectoral death rate at 4.6%.
Perlis posted the highest enterprise death rate at 6.2%, followed by Selangor at 5.6%, while Kuala Lumpur and Labuan each recorded 5.5%.
DOSM said the five-year survival rate for enterprises established in 2020 and still operating in 2025 stood at 72.5%.
Construction recorded the highest sectoral survival rate at 73.8%, followed by agriculture at 73.1% and services at 72.5%.
Sarawak led all states with a 79.5% five-year enterprise survival rate, while seven other states also exceeded the national average.
