The coronavirus pandemic has a significant impact on economic activity in Ger-many. In view of the poor business prospects, the number of market entries (start-ups) should have decreased and the number of exits should have increased. Against this background, the question arises as to how business start-ups and liquidations actually developed. Data on business start-ups and liquidations in trade are now available for 2020. These are used in the following to trace and analyze the monthly fluctuations that can be ob-served in the economy.