Paris saw a record 18.6 percent increase in business creation in 2025, according to the annual report by the Paris/Greater Paris economic observatory, which is led by the Apur. The Greater Paris metropolitan area experienced an 8.5 percent increase, while the Île-de-France region recorded 6.7 percent and the whole country saw a 4.9 percent rise. Within the city limits, nearly 120,000 companies were created in twelve months. This figure marks a reversal of a long-term trend, as Paris had seen its share of business creation in Île-de-France decline in favor of surrounding areas for more than twenty years. The Paris Île-de-France Chamber of Commerce and Industry noted that the capital now accounts for 36 percent of the region’s business creations, outpacing both the inner and outer suburbs. Despite the surge in business creation, the unemployment rate in Paris increased by 0.4 percentage points over the year, reaching 6.1 percent of the active population. Business failures followed a similar trend, with Paris recording 1,563 business failures in the last quarter of 2025, nearly 18 percent more than a year earlier. A similar increase of 18.5 percent had already been recorded during the summer. Meanwhile, vehicle registrations reached an unprecedented level, according to the Crocis, the CCI observatory. The micro-enterprise regime has made business registration simple and inexpensive, representing more than six out of ten business creations in Île-de-France and surpassing the 200,000 registration threshold for the first time. However, the Insee, France's national statistics office, found that fewer than three out of ten micro-entrepreneurs who registered in 2018 were still active five years later. Traditional business creations, excluding micro-entrepreneurs, also increased by nearly 16 percent compared to the previous year in Paris. Across the entire region, commerce rose by 22.5 percent, driven by the growth of the digital sector. The density of Paris remains a decisive advantage, with customers, financing, networks, and skills within reach of the metro. Economists refer to this phenomenon as agglomeration effects, noting that the gap between Paris and the rest of the country reflects a knowledge-based economy that concentrates where it already finds what it needs. Entrepreneurs observe that it is easier to find a first customer on the Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Antoine than in Vierzon. This polarization risks deepening the territorial divide that territorial planning has tried to reduce for more than half a century. Remote work was expected to disperse activity but may instead have reinforced the appeal of the center, which has become a place of meeting more than a place of production. The question left open by this record remains: Does Paris create businesses or substitute employment? The answer will not come from creation figures but from survival figures.