In the red is a fixed idiom for operating at a financial loss, and its grammar is stricter than it looks -- one preposition, no article, and a small set of verbs and intensifiers that actually pair with it. Swap in a different preposition and the sentence stops sounding like finance and starts sounding like a translation.
The most natural verb collocations are be/operate in the red, stay/remain in the red, and fall into the red. The most natural intensifiers are deeply in the red and heavily in the red. Never in a red -- the idiom takes no article at all.
State register: describing an ongoing deficit
When a business or division is already losing money, the idiom takes "in," and the standard verb is "operate" or simply "be."
"The startup has been in the red for three consecutive years due to high R&D costs."
"Unfortunately, due to the unexpected supply chain disruptions and a slowdown in sales, the company has been operating in the red for two consecutive quarters."
"In" describes the state itself. It doesn't matter whether the loss is severe or mild -- being "in the red" is binary, expenses exceed revenue -- but the degree can still be graded with "deeply" or "heavily" when the writer wants to signal how far past breakeven the numbers sit.
Transition register: describing the move into loss
When a company crosses from profit into loss, the idiom switches to a different preposition on the same base phrase.
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"Fall into the red" is the standard way to describe the transition itself, while "in the red" without "into" describes the resulting state. That's the one place "into" is correct with this idiom -- everywhere else, "in" is the only option.
What doesn't collocate
The most common mistake is substituting the wrong preposition for the static state: "we will likely end up on the red" and "the regional branch was operating at the red" are both unnatural, because the fixed idiom requires "in," not "on" or "at." The second mistake is pairing the idiom with a verb it doesn't take, such as "making in the red" -- you make a loss or make a profit, but you don't "make" this idiom; the fixed verbs are be, operate, stay, remain, and fall.
Practice scenarios
Practice using in the red in situations like:
- reporting to leadership that a division's expenses have outpaced revenue for a defined period
- explaining that an expansion or investment temporarily put a budget into deficit
- distinguishing a company that's deeply in the red from one that just crossed the line
Useful practice phrases:
- "The division has been operating in the red for two consecutive quarters."
- "We fell into the red after the expansion, but we're not deeply in the red yet."
- "The accounts stayed in the red longer than the board expected."