How Many Businesses Are in the US? 2026 Statistics and Key Facts
Discover how many businesses operate in the US — from total counts and small business stats to formation rates, failure data, and legal structures. Updated 2026.
Using comparable 2022 firm-level datasets, the United States had 36,207,130 businesses: 6,395,635 employer firms in Statistics of U.S. Businesses and 29,811,495 nonemployer businesses in Nonemployer Statistics. The separate 2023 County Business Patterns count of 8,361,342 measures employer establishments—physical locations—not distinct firms, so it should not be added to the nonemployer count as a total of distinct businesses.
Category | Count | Source |
|---|---|---|
Combined firm-level businesses (2022) | 36,207,130 | Census SUSB + NES 2022 |
Employer firms (2022) | 6,395,635 | Census SUSB 2022 |
Nonemployer businesses (2022) | 29,811,495 | Census NES 2022 |
Employer establishments (2023; locations) | 8,361,342 | Census CBP 2023 |
Nonemployer businesses (2023; separate series) | 30,427,808 | Census NES 2023 |
Census reports that nonemployer establishments represented 78.4% of all US establishments in the combined 2023 view and grew 25.1% from 2015 to 2023. Census introduced significant Nonemployer Statistics methodology changes beginning with reference year 2022, so comparisons across that break should be treated cautiously.
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau Nonemployer Statistics and County Business Patterns, 2023. CBP measures employer locations; NES measures businesses without paid employees.
2022 comparable firm-level total: 36.2 million businesses—6.40 million employer firms and 29.81 million nonemployer businesses.
Employer firms and employer establishments are different units. A firm is a business organization under common ownership and may operate at one or many establishments. A nonemployer business has no paid employees and is identified through federal tax records. Legal form cannot be inferred from nonemployer status alone: nonemployers may be sole proprietorships, partnerships, or corporations.
Yes, although each series measures a different unit. Employer establishments increased from 7,860,674 in 2017 to 8,361,342 in 2023. Nonemployer businesses also increased, but Census methodology changes beginning in 2022 limit direct long-run comparisons.
Year | Employer Establishments | YoY Change |
|---|---|---|
2017 | 7,860,674 | — |
2019 | 7,959,103 | +1.3% (2yr) |
2021 | 8,148,606 | +2.4% (2yr) |
2022 | 8,298,562 | +1.84% |
2023 | 8,361,342 | +0.76% |
Source: US Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2017–2023
The SBA Office of Advocacy reports 36,207,130 small businesses, or 99.9% of US businesses, and 62.3 million small-business employees, or 45.9% of private-sector workers. SBA size standards vary by industry; the often-used fewer-than-500-employees threshold is not a universal rule for every industry.
Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
Employer firms | 6,395,635 | Census SUSB 2022 |
Small businesses | 36,207,130 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2026 |
Small-business share of US businesses | 99.9% | SBA Office of Advocacy 2026 |
Small-business employees | 62.3 million | SBA Office of Advocacy 2026 |
Share of private-sector workers | 45.9% | SBA Office of Advocacy 2026 |
Employer establishments with fewer than 20 on-site employees | 7,152,312 | Census CBP 2023 |
Share of employer establishments with fewer than 20 on-site employees | 85.5% | Census CBP 2023 |
County Business Patterns counted 4,639,650 employer establishments with fewer than five on-site employees in 2023. It also counted 23,709 establishments with 500 or more on-site employees. These are location-size counts and cannot be used to classify the size of the parent firm.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023. Employment size is measured at each establishment, not across the parent firm.
SBA small-business eligibility is generally determined at the firm level and varies by industry. By contrast, the CBP size table groups physical establishments by employment at that location. A location with fewer than 500 workers may belong to a much larger multi-establishment company.
CBP counted 7,152,312 employer establishments with fewer than 20 on-site employees, representing 85.5% of employer establishments. This is a useful description of location size, not a count of independently owned firms.
This is the question most business statistics pages ignore entirely — and for anyone starting or running a business, it is the most important one. The legal structure of a business determines personal liability, tax treatment, operational flexibility, and the compliance burden the owner carries.
Federal tax-return categories do not map one-to-one to state-law entity types. LLCs can file as disregarded entities, partnerships, S corporations, or C corporations, so IRS return counts cannot be added together to produce a national legal-entity total.
Source: IRS Statistics of Income. Return counts measure tax filings and should not be described as counts of active legal entities.
For tax year 2022, the IRS reported 30,983,810 nonfarm sole-proprietorship returns, $2.0807 trillion in receipts, and $410.664 billion in net income less deficit. Average gross receipts were $67,155 per return, while aggregate net income less deficit equaled 19.7% of receipts.
Source: IRS Statistics of Income (SOI), Sole Proprietorship Returns — Tax Year 2022
No single authoritative federal dataset counts active LLCs nationwide. Partnership and corporation tax-return counts are year-specific filing measures, not one-to-one counts of active state-law entities. A national LLC figure requires a reproducible, same-date compilation from all state registries.
Sources: IRS Statistics of Income annual return tables and individual state business registries. Delaware statistics describe Delaware registrations only and are not a proxy for the national entity mix.
The IRS recorded 30,983,810 nonfarm sole-proprietorship returns in 2022. Those returns reported $2.0807 trillion in receipts and $410.664 billion in net income less deficit. Return counts should not be compared directly with estimated active-entity counts from different years.
The critical legal gap: Sole proprietorships carry no liability protection. A sole proprietor's personal assets — savings, home, car — are directly exposed if the business is sued, defaults on a debt, or faces a regulatory penalty. Most sole proprietors are unaware of this exposure, or accept it because they have not formalised their business at all.
There is no single authoritative federal count of active LLCs. LLC formation and active-status figures are maintained by state registries, and national claims require a reproducible 50-state compilation using a common date and definition. Delaware reported 235,393 new LLCs in 2025, but Delaware’s formation mix should not be generalized to the entire country.
An LLC can provide liability separation under state law and flexible federal tax classification, but protection depends on governing law, facts, and proper operation. A single-member LLC is generally disregarded for federal income-tax purposes unless it elects another classification.
334,461 new entities were formed in 2025; 235,393 were LLCs (70.4%).
Delaware reported 2,287,728 total entities, including 1,653,329 active LLCs.
More than two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies are incorporated in Delaware.
Nearly 70% of US IPOs in 2025 chose Delaware as their corporate home.
Delaware corporation franchise taxes and related fees contributed $2.0504 billion to the state general fund in fiscal year 2025.
Delaware’s incorporation statistics measure legal domicile, not where companies operate or employ workers.
Businesses considering a state of formation should evaluate where they operate, foreign-qualification requirements, taxes, reporting duties, privacy rules, and governing law. Formation-state marketing claims should be checked against current statutes and official filing guidance.
Sector | Sole Proprietor Returns | Total Receipts |
|---|---|---|
Other Services | 4,052,693 | $160.2B |
Professional, Scientific & Technical Services | 3,917,083 | $247.8B |
Transportation & Warehousing | 3,775,848 | $202.6B |
Construction | 3,316,895 | $377.1B |
Administrative & Support | 3,147,581 | $118.0B |
Source: IRS Statistics of Income, Sole Proprietorship Returns 2022, published October 2024
The 3.78 million transportation and warehousing sole proprietors — third largest by count — largely reflect the gig economy: rideshare drivers, delivery couriers, and independent truckers. Construction leads in receipts ($377.1 billion) despite ranking fourth by return count.
The US Census Bureau's Business Formation Statistics (BFS) program tracks new business applications in near-real time. The data tells a story of sustained and accelerating entrepreneurial activity — with a few important caveats about what the numbers actually mean.
Total applications surged 24.5% in 2020 and reached 5.67 million in 2025. High-Propensity Applications—filings with characteristics associated with becoming employer firms—grew more slowly than total applications. Applications are administrative filings, not confirmed business openings.
Source: US Census Bureau, Business Formation Statistics (BFS) — Annual unadjusted series 2016–2025
The Census Bureau recorded 5,671,836 business applications in 2025 — the highest annual total in the history of the BFS program, which dates to 2004. That is nearly double the 2.95 million applications filed in 2016.
Year | Total Applications | YoY Change | High Propensity (HPA) |
|---|---|---|---|
2016 | 2,948,338 | — | 1,225,243 |
2019 | 3,498,990 | +0.3% | 1,316,191 |
2020 | 4,356,498 | +24.5% | 1,518,956 |
2021 | 5,390,816 | +23.7% | 1,841,954 |
2022 | 5,062,563 | −6.1% | 1,722,399 |
2023 | 5,469,302 | +8.0% | 1,848,540 |
2024 | 5,224,176 | −4.5% | 1,715,458 |
2025 | 5,671,836 | +8.6% | 1,708,842 |
Source: US Census Bureau Business Formation Statistics, unadjusted annual totals
The Census Bureau distinguishes between total business applications and High Propensity Applications (HPA) — those most likely to become employer businesses within four quarters. In 2025, 1,708,842 of the 5.67 million total applications — 30.1% — were classified as high propensity.
The composition of applications changed: High-Propensity Applications represented 41.6% of applications in 2016 and 30.1% in 2025. Census projected that 313,024 applications from the 2025 cohort would become employer firms within four quarters. These measures indicate propensity, not the quality or eventual success of a business.
Business applications rose 24.5% in 2020 and another 23.7% in 2021. After declining in 2022, applications increased again in 2023 and 2025. Because applications are EIN filings rather than confirmed openings, the series measures formation activity, not the number of operating businesses created.
Business failure statistics are among the most widely cited — and most widely misquoted — in entrepreneurship media. The definitive source is the Bureau of Labor Statistics Business Employment Dynamics (BDM), which tracks establishment survival rates over time using a cohort methodology.
In the BLS cohort of private-sector establishments opened in 1994, 79.6% survived one year, 49.6% survived five years, and 33.6% survived ten years. These figures describe establishment survival for one historical cohort, not a universal business-failure rate.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Business Employment Dynamics, Table 7 — cohort survival rates tracked through March 2025
Years since opening | % establishments surviving | % no longer surviving |
|---|---|---|
Year 1 | 79.6% | 20.4% |
Year 2 | 70.2% | 29.8% |
Year 3 | 62.1% | 37.9% |
Year 5 | 49.6% | 50.4% |
Year 10 | 33.6% | 66.4% |
Year 20 | 20.3% | 79.7% |
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Business Employment Dynamics, Table 7 — survival rates of establishments founded in 1994, tracked through March 2025
The commonly repeated failure-rate shorthand is too broad. BLS measures whether establishments in a specified cohort continue to have employment; an establishment that no longer survives is not necessarily equivalent to an entire firm failing. Results also vary by cohort, industry, and period.
The cited BLS table reports establishment survival outcomes; it does not identify why establishments close. Causes such as financing, demand, cash flow, owner circumstances, or compliance require separate evidence and should not be attributed to this survival table.
Legal note: Forming an LLC does not eliminate every possibility of owner liability. Outcomes depend on state law and facts such as personal guarantees, the owner’s own conduct, fraud, commingling, capitalization, and observance of applicable entity requirements.
Sector | Employer Firms | 2022 Revenue | Selected Legal Context |
|---|---|---|---|
Wholesale Trade | 265,472 | $11.870T | Distribution contracts, antitrust, trade credit, and product liability |
Manufacturing | 240,644 | $7.049T | Product safety, environmental compliance, employment law, and supply contracts |
Retail Trade | 644,146 | $6.975T | Sales tax, consumer protection, product liability, and accessibility |
Finance and Insurance | 242,954 | $5.853T | Federal and state licensing, fiduciary duties, and consumer-finance rules |
Health Care and Social Assistance | 691,347 | $3.330T | State licensing, HIPAA, reimbursement, and scope-of-practice laws |
Construction | 785,917 | $2.921T | Contractor licensing, bonding, workplace safety, and lien rights |
Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services | 876,176 | $2.667T | Professional licensing, IP protection, contracts, and professional liability |
Information | 91,800 | $2.215T | Intellectual property, data privacy, cybersecurity, and platform regulation |
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census, EC2200BASIC all-sector table. Firm counts and rankings use unrounded US sector-total rows.
These are the eight largest 2022 Economic Census in-scope sectors ranked by unrounded sales, value of shipments, or revenue. Together they reported $42.879527192 trillion, or 84.9% of the complete in-scope sector total. This is a ranking, not the complete US business universe; the complete 19-sector table appears in the revenue section below.
Professional, scientific, and technical services accounted for 3.92 million sole-proprietorship returns and $247.8 billion in receipts in the IRS 2022 data, ranking second to Other Services by return count among the sectors displayed.
Top 4 states — CA, TX, FL, NY — account for 34.5% of all employer establishments nationally.
Florida recorded 647,734 business applications in 2025, the most of any state. California had the most projected employer formations at 44,765. Applications and projected formations are different measures, and neither is a direct count of operating businesses created.
Source: US Census Bureau, Business Formation Statistics (BFS) — 2025 annual total
Rank | State | Employer establishments | Share of US Total |
|---|---|---|---|
1 | California | 1,029,689 | 12.3% |
2 | Texas | 670,878 | 8.0% |
3 | Florida | 645,575 | 7.7% |
4 | New York | 541,313 | 6.5% |
5 | Illinois | 322,415 | 3.9% |
6 | Pennsylvania | 307,065 | 3.7% |
7 | Georgia | 261,320 | 3.1% |
8 | North Carolina | 258,169 | 3.1% |
9 | Ohio | 255,049 | 3.1% |
10 | New Jersey | 237,968 | 2.8% |
Source: US Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023
The state where a business operates and the state where it is legally incorporated can be entirely different — and that choice has significant legal, tax, and liability implications.
Decision | Leading State | Why |
|---|---|---|
Most businesses (operating location) | California | Population and economic density |
Corporation legal domicile | Delaware | Court of Chancery; more than two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies |
LLC formation choice | Depends on operating facts | Compare home-state filing, foreign qualification, taxes, privacy, and governing law |
Most new business applications | Florida | Population growth, no state income tax |
Texas had 670,878 employer establishments in 2023, compared with Florida’s 645,575. Florida recorded 647,734 business applications in 2025 versus 544,146 in Texas. Applications are filings for new Employer Identification Numbers, not confirmed business births; projected employer formations are a separate Census measure.
Business Size | Establishments | Employees | % of Workforce |
|---|---|---|---|
1–4 employees | 4,639,650 | 7,575,276 | 5.4% |
5–9 employees | 1,465,355 | 9,721,925 | 7.0% |
10–19 employees | 1,047,307 | 14,195,837 | 10.2% |
20–49 employees | 759,342 | 22,828,921 | 16.3% |
50–99 employees | 249,344 | 17,109,742 | 12.2% |
100–249 employees | 138,356 | 20,808,223 | 14.9% |
250–499 employees | 38,279 | 13,041,850 | 9.3% |
Establishments with fewer than 500 on-site employees | 8,337,633 | 105,281,774 | 75.3% |
500–999 employees | 14,239 | 9,681,464 | 6.9% |
1,000+ employees | 9,470 | 24,868,504 | 17.8% |
Large business total (500+) | 23,709 | 34,549,968 | 24.7% |
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023. These are establishment-size statistics based on employment at each location; they are not firm-size small-business statistics. Total employment was 139,831,742.
Employer establishments increased 6.4% from 2017 to 2023, while average payroll per employee increased 30.7%, from $52,302 to $68,345. These CBP figures describe payroll and employment at employer establishments; they do not by themselves establish why payroll per employee changed.
Source: US Census Bureau, County Business Patterns (CBP) — Establishment counts and annual payroll 2017–2023
NAICS | Sector | 2022 Revenue |
|---|---|---|
115 | Support activities for agriculture and forestry | $0.035 trillion |
21 | Mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction | $0.725 trillion |
22 | Utilities | $0.766 trillion |
23 | Construction | $2.921 trillion |
31-33 | Manufacturing | $7.049 trillion |
42 | Wholesale Trade | $11.870 trillion |
44-45 | Retail Trade | $6.975 trillion |
48-49 | Transportation and Warehousing | $1.316 trillion |
51 | Information | $2.215 trillion |
52 | Finance and Insurance | $5.853 trillion |
53 | Real Estate and Rental and Leasing | $0.946 trillion |
54 | Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services | $2.667 trillion |
55 | Management of Companies and Enterprises | $0.117 trillion |
56 | Administrative and Support and Waste Management and Remediation Services | $1.348 trillion |
61 | Educational Services | $0.090 trillion |
62 | Health Care and Social Assistance | $3.330 trillion |
71 | Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation | $0.339 trillion |
72 | Accommodation and Food Services | $1.196 trillion |
81 | Other Services (except Public Administration) | $0.721 trillion |
Total: 19 in-scope sectors | $50.479 trillion |
The 19 in-scope 2022 Economic Census sectors reported $50.479160646 trillion in sales, value of shipments, or revenue for paid-employee establishments. Separately, 2022 SUSB reports $50.848996830 trillion in employer-firm receipts. The products have different construction and coverage and should not be treated as interchangeable. Both are gross-flow measures, not value added, and neither is directly comparable with GDP.
The published aggregate “net income less deficit” includes losses. Dividing that amount by the number of returns with net income does not produce a valid average for profitable sole proprietors, so no such average is reported here.
The 2024 NVCA Yearbook reports 13,608 US venture-capital deals totaling $170.6 billion in 2023. Deal count is not a count of distinct companies because one company may complete multiple deals, so it cannot support a percentage of all US businesses.
All statistics are drawn from primary US government sources and verified federal surveys, retrieved directly via Census API, IRS data downloads, and BLS published tables.
Source | Data Covered | Year |
|---|---|---|
US Census Bureau — SUSB and County Business Patterns | Employer firms (SUSB); employer establishments, employment, and payroll by location (CBP) | 2022–2023 |
US Census Bureau — Nonemployer Statistics (NES) | Businesses without paid employees; counts and receipts | 2022–2023 |
US Census Bureau — Business Formation Statistics (BFS) | New business applications, HPA, projected formations | 2025 |
US Census Bureau — Economic Census / SUSB | Economic Census revenue for 19 in-scope paid-employee establishment sectors; separate SUSB national employer-firm receipts, including its summed-establishment-receipts caveat | 2022 |
IRS Statistics of Income — Sole Proprietorship Returns | Tax-return counts, receipts, and net income less deficit | 2022 |
Bureau of Labor Statistics — Business Employment Dynamics | Private-sector establishment survival by cohort | 1994 cohort |
Delaware Division of Corporations | Delaware formations, active entities, and franchise revenue | 2025 |
Federal Reserve — Small Business Credit Survey | Employer-firm AI use and plans among optional-module respondents | 2026 report |
NVCA Yearbook 2024 (PitchBook data) | Venture capital investment, deal count, AUM | 2023 |
SBA Office of Advocacy | Small-business count and share of private-sector employment | 2026 |
Economic Census sector figures use 2022 United States rows from EC2200BASIC filtered to GEOTYPE=01, ST=00, GEOCOMP=00, TYPOP=00, and TAXSTAT=00.
The complete figure sums the 19 in-scope sector-total rows using unrounded RCPTOT values reported in thousands of dollars.
NAICS 115 represents the in-scope support-activities portion of Agriculture; the Economic Census does not cover all of NAICS 11.
Public Administration (NAICS 92) is outside the Economic Census, and parts of several represented sectors are also excluded.
GEOCOMP=R0, the separate offshore-area geography, is excluded so Mining is not counted twice.
Economic Census sector revenue and SUSB employer-firm receipts are reported separately and are not combined with nonemployer receipts.
Gross receipts include intermediate transactions and are not value added or GDP.
Census County Business Patterns glossary: firms, enterprises, and establishments
SBA Office of Advocacy: Frequently Asked Questions About Small Business 2026
Census 2022 Economic Census Construction table (EC2223BASIC)
Census 2022 Economic Census Wholesale Trade table (EC2242BASIC)
Census 2022 Economic Census Finance and Insurance table (EC2252BASIC)
Census 2022 Economic Census Real Estate and Rental and Leasing table (EC2253BASIC)
Census 2022 Economic Census Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services table (EC2254BASIC)
Census 2022 Economic Census Health Care and Social Assistance table (EC2262BASIC)
Census 2022 Economic Census Accommodation and Food Services table (EC2272BASIC)
Methodology note: County Business Patterns counts employer establishments—physical locations—not distinct firms. For a consistent 2022 business count, this article combines 6,395,635 employer firms from SUSB with 29,811,495 nonemployer businesses from NES, totaling 36,207,130. The separate 2023 figures of 8,361,342 employer establishments and 30,427,808 nonemployer businesses describe different statistical units and are not added here as a count of distinct businesses. Data years and units are stated with each claim.