UK report /East of England /Chelmsford
DueLead Pulse · Q3 2026

Chelmsford business borrowing report

15.0% of Chelmsford's 10,285 trading companies have secured borrowing (1,539 businesses), above the East of England at 13.6%.

Covers 2026-07-01 to 2026-09-30 · Companies House file of 2026-10-01 · Free to cite with a link

Share of trading companies with secured borrowing

East of England
13.6%
355,968 companies · 11th of 12
12.3%17.4%
10.3k
Trading companies
10,285
15.0%
With secured borrowing
+1.3 pts vs region
3.6k
Live charges registered
2.3 per borrower
388
New companies in Q3 2026
still trading at quarter end
4.0%
Late filing accounts
409 companies
In brief

What the data says

01Real estate & lettings is the most secured-borrowing sector here: 48% of its 1,420 companies have a lender's charge.
02388 new companies started in Chelmsford in Q3 2026, and 409 (4.0%) are late filing accounts.
Who borrows

Bigger and older companies borrow more

Share of trading companies in Chelmsford with at least one outstanding charge, by size (from the accounts they file) and by age.

By company size

Dashed line: East of England overall

Micro
11.0%
Small
23.2%
Medium & large
66.7%
No accounts yet
4.0%

By company age

Dashed line: East of England overall

0-2 years
4.7%
2-5 years
13.3%
5-10 years
16.1%
10-20 years
15.4%
20+ years
37.7%
By sector

Where secured lending is concentrated

The largest sectors in Chelmsford, ranked by the share of companies with a lender's charge.

Real estate & lettings
48.2%
Personal services
9.5%
Business support services
8.8%
Retail
7.4%
Healthcare & dental
6.6%
Construction & trades
6.5%
Tech, media & telecoms
4.3%
Professional services
4.3%
Share with secured borrowingAll sectors in Chelmsford (15.0%)
Town reports

Other towns in the East of England

Every town with at least 2,000 trading companies registered there.

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10Companies in Chelmsford with a new trigger this week
How we built this report

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. You're welcome to quote and chart these figures with a link to this page.