This paper explores the key factors affecting survival duration by industry in relation to corporate credit risk, and also estimates survival duration by industry. For this purpose, a hazard model with time-varying variables and the Kaplan-Meier survival function estimation method were applied. As risk factors affecting corporate survival duration, firm-specific characteristics such as firm size, startup type, and year of establishment, as well as financial characteristics, were considered. Since small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have relatively poor creditworthiness and are greatly affected by business cycle fluctuations, macroeconomic variables were also considered. Empirical data were extracted from the extensive corporate databases of the Korea Credit Guarantee Fund and Korea Enterprise Data Co., Ltd., and cohort data were constructed and analyzed for SMEs established between 1998 and 2002, tracked through 2007. The analysis results revealed that, common across all industries, the timing of establishment, financial cost burden ratio, cash holding level, loan interest rate, and term structure of interest rates were useful factors for assessing corporate survival. Additionally, return on equity (profitability) and total capital investment efficiency (productivity) were significant factors in manufacturing and wholesale/retail and service industries, while total asset turnover (activity) and total borrowings dependency (stability) were significant factors in the construction and wholesale/retail and service industries. Industry-specific factors included total asset size for manufacturing, firm type for wholesale/retail and service industries, and sales growth rate (growth), value-added ratio (productivity), and debt ratio (stability) for the construction industry. Meanwhile, the estimation of survival duration showed that the more economically stable the period at the time of establishment, the lower the default risk and the earlier the stabilization point, in the order of wholesale/retail and service, manufacturing, and construction industries.