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Payment delays among businesses in the Construction and Real Estate Activities sector reached 13.68 days in Q1 2026, according to the Construction and Real Estate Activities Business Payment Behaviour Study carried out by INFORMA.
Nathalie Gianese, Director of Research at Informa D&B, states: “Businesses in the Construction and Real Estate Activities sector have reduced their average delay against agreed payment terms by over 21 days since the end of 2010, falling from nearly 35 days late to 13.68 in Q1 this year”. This is the largest reduction recorded among the sectors analysed in this study.
Construction and Real Estate Activities has therefore shifted from being over 14 days above the national average to a gap of nearly one day below it in the first three months of 2026. A downward trend in the sector held until the end of 2017, after which it evolved in a similar way to the overall figure.
On-time payments among businesses engaged in construction and real estate activities reached 49.92% in Q1, a better performance than the overall 43.94%. Payments over 90 days late in the sector account for 4.33% (versus 3.96% overall).
Of the two branches that make up the sector, real estate activities are, except at specific times, above the average over the period analysed, as payment terms are shaped by longer investment cycles. Payment delays peaked at 43.68 days in mid-2011 and fell below the average in 2013.
Data for the Construction branch remain very close to the average, probably due to greater contractual pressure, with the highest delay at 34.74 days at the end of 2010 and the lowest, 11.97 days, in Q3 2017.
By size, micro-enterprises recorded the highest delay in Q1, at 16.18 days. This is 5.16 days more than small businesses, which perform best with a delay of 11.02 days. For large corporations, it reaches 12.08, while medium-sized businesses extend their payments by 12.78 days. In all cases, delays are below the overall average.
The gap between the regions with the highest and lowest delay is 37.58 days. The shortest delay is recorded in Ceuta, at 6.25 days, followed by Cantabria at 6.96 days, and Galicia, at 8.19 days. By contrast, Melilla is the region where businesses in the sector extend their payments the most beyond agreed terms, at 43.83 days, ahead of the Balearic Islands, at 21.06 days, the Canary Islands, at 17.29 days, and Madrid, at 16.50 days. Between January and March, the sector’s average payment delay stood below the overall average in 13 of the 19 regions, with Ceuta and the Canary Islands standing out, at 8.82 and 4.72 days lower, respectively.
In Europe, the most significant delays among Construction and Real Estate Activities businesses are recorded in Portugal, at 22.13 days, while the lowest is in the Netherlands, at 3.01 days. Of the eight countries analysed, the sector’s average payment delay is above the national average in two: Belgium (0.91 days) and the Netherlands (0.09 days), while in France and the United Kingdom it is 4.56 and 2.60 days below, respectively.
