UK hospitality venues close at nearly 19 a week
NIQ data shows Britain lost 977 licensed premises in the year to September, with casual dining shrinking fastest even as new openings fill many of the same sites.
Britain lost nearly 19 licensed hospitality venues a week in the year to September, according to new data from NIQ's Hospitality Market Monitor.
Licensed premises fell 1% to 98,319 in the 12 months to September 2026, a net loss of 977 venues, the data shows. Over the third quarter alone, 2,436 venues closed, about 27 a day, while 2,191 opened, often in the same vacated premises, according to NIQ.
Quarter on quarter, the total fell a further 0.2%, or 245 sites, since June. Casual dining fell 2.2% year on year and is now about 23.4% smaller than before the Covid-19 pandemic began in 2020, NIQ said.
Closures and openings are now running side by side, often in the very same premises.
Where the UK hospitality closures land
Hotels and holiday parks bucked the trend: licensed hotels grew 0.2% and holiday and caravan parks grew 0.7% over the 12 months, which NIQ linked in part to continued demand for domestic holidays. The NIQ RSM Business Tracker has recorded sub-inflation sales growth for managed groups for 16 consecutive months, and only 37% of sector leaders told NIQ's Business Confidence Survey they feel optimistic about the next 12 months.
Karl Chessell, director of hospitality operators and food for EMEA at NIQ, said the closures reflect a growing pile-up of challenges for the sector. He described the coming months as critical and called for meaningful cost support alongside a boost to consumer spending over Christmas and New Year.
A mixed response to the Budget
The data follows the UK government's autumn Budget, in which the Chancellor left VAT on hospitality unchanged. The threshold for small business rate relief for hospitality, retail and leisure rose from £12,000 to £18,000, a change the government says removes about 70,000 businesses from paying rates altogether. The National Minimum Wage will also rise 3.9%, with the increase extended to workers aged 18 to 20.
Several prominent operators described the Budget as a missed opportunity, saying it fell short of what the sector needs to recover, though NIQ's data does not single out the Budget as a cause of the latest closures. Individual closures this autumn, including hotel groups entering administration, sit alongside penalties such as the food safety fine issued to a Barnsley restaurant this week, underlining the pressure running through the sector.
