The Banco de España reported on 24 September 2026 that non-financial companies increased their revenue, earnings and returns in the first half of 2026. According to the analysis by the Central de Balances the cifra neta de negocios rose by 6.6 per cent compared with the same period the previous year. Net ordinary profit (Resultado Ordinario Neto) increased by 30.9 per cent. Return on assets (Rentabilidad del activo) rose from 4.7 to 5.7 per cent.
The authority attributes the upturn largely to energy, refineries and the wholesale fuel trade. Without these rapidly growing areas, revenue growth would have been 2.9 per cent and the increase in net ordinary profit 2.5 per cent. The strongest growth was in the refiningsegment, which visibly boosted returns across the sector.
The results come from the quarterly CBT sample of the Central de Balances. The Banco de España notes that industrial and energy companies, as well as large firms, are over-represented in this sample. A value-added-weighted analysis therefore yields more moderate, but still positive, revenue growth of 5.1 per cent in the first half of 2026.
The aggregate figures mask marked differences between companies. While 61.5 per cent of the firms surveyed reported rising revenue, return on assets fell at 53.6 per cent. This underlines that the upturn is strongly sector-driven and is not being felt across the board.
The central bank describes the trend as a recovery in key balance-sheet indicators. It also stresses the need for analytical caution: the substantial contribution from energy and refining makes the figures more vulnerable to price fluctuations and demand shocks in these segments. For economic and supervisory policy, this means sectoral risks and possible transmission channels through supply chains, as well as financing costs, need to be monitored closely.
As a next step, the Banco de España announced that it would publish the third-quarter indicators and preliminary data for the 2025 annual accounts on 24 November 2026 . This should provide a clearer assessment of the sustainability of earnings growth and of whether the upturn is spreading beyond the particularly dynamic energy-related sectors.
Editor: Daniel Mayer (Article created with AI assistance).