Small Business Statistics (2026): 38 Sourced Figures

This page collects figures on US small businesses. It covers how many there are, who owns them, how many start and close, how long they survive and what strains their finances. Every number links to the document that first published it. Most come from four public bodies: the US Small Business Administration (SBA) Office of Advocacy, the US Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and the 12 Federal Reserve Banks. Owners who need a better view of cash flow, receivables and tax records can compare products on the StatWharf page for accounting software. More figure collections are listed on the StatWharf research page.

Method

The data window runs from 2022 to September 2026. Counts of firms and owners use 2022 data, which is the latest year that the federal statistical agencies publish for those series. Survival figures run to March 2025. Business applications run to August 2026. Survey figures come from the Small Business Credit Survey fielded in late 2025.

StatWharf used primary sources only. That means government agencies and the Federal Reserve Banks, which ran and published the surveys cited here. Statistics aggregators and blogs that re-quote other sources were excluded. Each figure was checked against its source in October 2026. Figures that did not appear on a primary source were dropped. No value on this page is modeled, estimated or calculated by StatWharf.

The SBA Office of Advocacy defines a small business for research purposes as an independent business having fewer than 500 employees. This is not the same as the industry size standards that the SBA uses for loans and federal contracts. Those standards vary by industry. Readers who compare figures from different sources need to check the definition that each one uses.

How many small businesses there are

The SBA Office of Advocacy publishes its Frequently Asked Questions About Small Business each year. The February 2026 edition draws on the Census Bureau’s 2022 Statistics of US Businesses and 2022 Nonemployer Statistics. It is a widely cited source for the size of the small business sector.

Most small businesses have no staff. The owner is the whole business. The number of these nonemployer firms rose from 15.4 million in 1997 to 29.8 million in 2022, according to the same FAQ. From January 1995 to December 2024, small businesses created 20.7 million net new jobs. Over the same period, large businesses created 13.2 million net new jobs. The FAQ notes one effect of its method. A firm that grows past 500 employees moves into the large firm group, and its later job gains count as large firm gains.

The firm counts describe 2022. They do not show how many small businesses exist in 2026. No federal agency publishes a more recent full count. Pages that quote a 2025 or 2026 total usually apply their own growth estimate to these numbers.

Small businesses by state

The SBA Office of Advocacy publishes a profile for each state. The 2025 profiles, released in June 2025, use Census Nonemployer Statistics and Statistics of US Businesses. The table shows four of the largest states.

The share of workers at small businesses differs by state. It is 47.4% in California, 46.6% in New York, 44.4% in Texas and 39.6% in Florida. Florida has as many small businesses as Texas but a lower share of its workforce in them. Profiles for every other state and territory are published on the same SBA Office of Advocacy page.

Who owns small businesses

Ownership data comes from the Census Bureau’s Annual Business Survey and its Nonemployer Statistics by Demographics. The SBA FAQ reports both for 2022. Legal form matters to a reader of these figures for a practical reason. It decides how the business files its taxes.

The FAQ also reports that minority-owned businesses totaled 13 million in 2022. Family-owned employer firms had 15 employees per firm on average, against 11 for other employer firms. The FAQ notes that some firms file under more than one legal form. Its legal form shares therefore do not always add to 100%.

Most owners without staff run a sole proprietorship. Once a firm hires, the S corporation becomes the most common form. A move from one form to the other changes how the owner is paid and what the business must file.

New businesses and closures

The Census Bureau publishes Business Formation Statistics each month. The series counts applications for an Employer Identification Number (EIN) filed with the IRS. An application is not the same as a new business with staff. The Census Bureau therefore also projects how many applications will turn into employer businesses. BLS Business Employment Dynamics counts the establishments that actually open and close.

The two Census figures measure different things. The 531,728 applications in August 2026 include people who register a business and never hire. The total was down 7.8% on July 2026. The 28,501 projected formations are the Census Bureau’s estimate of how many of those applications will have payroll within four quarters. The Census page linked here always shows the latest month. The figures above come from the release of September 11, 2026. The next release was scheduled for October 14, 2026.

The SBA FAQ adds that startups made up 14.2% of business establishments in 2023, against 12.5% in 2019. At the check date, no federal agency published a count of 2025 closures.

How long new businesses survive

The BLS tracks every private sector establishment that opens in a given year and counts how many are still open each March after that. These figures cover establishments of all sizes. BLS does not separate them by firm size in this table. An establishment is a single location, so one firm with several sites counts more than once.

The 2015 cohort is the most recent group that BLS followed for ten full years. It shows the pattern most readers ask about. About half of new establishments were still open after five years, and about a third after ten. The newest cohort, opened in the year to March 2024, had a one-year survival rate of 77.9%. That cohort was the largest in the table, at 988,310 establishments.

Risk falls as a business ages. The SBA FAQ reports that 69.5% of establishments that reach five years also reach ten. A statement that most small businesses fail in the first year is not supported by these figures.

Finances, cash flow and costs

The Small Business Credit Survey is run by the 12 Federal Reserve Banks. The 2025 survey was fielded from September 3 to November 14, 2025. It drew 6,525 responses from small employer firms with 1 to 499 employees. It is a convenience sample, not a random sample. The Federal Reserve tells readers to keep possible bias in mind when they use the results.

The Federal Reserve defines uneven cash flow to include collecting on receivables. Its examples of operating expenses are payroll, rent and inventory. A further 19% of employer firms were at break-even at the end of 2024. The report adds that 60% of firms applied for financing in the prior 12 months. Among applicants, 22% received none of the financing they sought.

Firms without staff lean harder on the owner. In the nonemployer chartbook, 64% of nonemployer firms used the owners’ personal funds to deal with financial challenges, against 54% of employer firms. About half of nonemployer firms had no debt. The same chartbook reports that 31% did not regularly use external financing.

Paperwork and tax burden

The SBA Office of Advocacy measures the cost of federal paperwork for small firms. Its estimate draws on the federal inventory of information collections maintained by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

The IRS cost small businesses US$66,037 million in paperwork. That is far larger than any other agency in the SBA table. The next largest is the Securities and Exchange Commission, at US$6,623 million. The FAQ also compares paperwork cost with revenue. Small businesses generate US$265 in revenue for each US$1 of paperwork cost. Large businesses generate US$572 for the same US$1. In other words, paperwork weighs more heavily on a small firm’s revenue.

What the figures show

Three points stand out. First, the typical US small business is one person. Of the 36,207,130 small businesses, 82.3% have no employees. Most of those are sole proprietorships. Figures that describe “small business” in general are mostly describing these owners.

Second, survival is better than common claims suggest, but closure is still frequent. About half of the establishments that opened in the year to March 2015 were still open five years later. About a third were still open after ten years.

Third, cash is the daily problem. Among small employer firms, 50% reported uneven cash flow and 54% reported trouble paying operating expenses. Only 47% were operating at a profit. Federal paperwork, most of it from the IRS, adds a cost of over US$81 billion a year.

Several popular questions have no current primary answer. No federal agency publishes an average startup cost, an average accountant fee or an average insurance premium for small businesses. Figures for these that circulate online usually come from vendor surveys or from estimates. They were left off this page.

Where to go next

Owners who track receivables, expenses and tax records by hand can review the accounting software comparison. It sets out features, deployment and published pricing for each product. It does not name a single best product. Other figure collections are on the StatWharf research page.

The next update follows three releases: the next monthly Census Business Formation Statistics, the next BLS Business Employment Dynamics survival table and the next SBA Office of Advocacy FAQ. Corrections to any figure can be sent to the editorial address below.

Factual corrections are free: editorial@statwharf.com.