Age of Small Business Owners by State: Owners 65 or Older in Employer Firms, 2017 to 2023

The age of small business owners in 2023: 23.1% are 65 or older

Census asked owners of employer firms their age in six bands. In reference year 2023, 51.3% of owners with a reported age were 55 or older, and 23.1% were 65 or older.

The Annual Business Survey (ABS) table AB2300CSCBO counts 4,208,231 owners of responding employer firms who reported an age for 2023 (Census bulk file). Of these, 970,618 were 65 or older and 1,187,220 were 55 to 64.

The largest single band is 55 to 64, at 28.2% of owners in 2023. Owners under 45 made up 23.7%. Because 48.7% of owners are under 55, the median owner sits inside the 55 to 64 band.

Owner of a responding employer firm: A person reported as one of up to four largest owners of a business with paid employees that answered the ABS owner questions. Census applies no weighting for firms that did not respond, so the counts describe respondents and the percents are the usable figures (ABS methodology).

Half of owners have been 55 or older since 2017; the change is how many are past 65

Across seven survey years, the 55+ share stayed between 50.8% and 52.3%. The 65+ share rose or held in every year, from 20.1% to 23.1%.

The 65+ share moved from 20.1% in 2017 to 20.9% in 2019, 22.8% in 2021 and 23.1% in 2023. The 55 to 64 band shrank from 30.7% to 28.2% over the same span.

The national rise of 2.9 points exceeds the 90% margin for the change (0.6 points, using published standard errors of 0.3 and 0.2). The movement in the combined 55+ share, 0.5 points, has no published standard error, so this report does not call it a change.

Read together, the series describes an owner base that is aging in place rather than one with a growing over-55 bloc: owners who were 55 to 64 in 2017 have crossed 65, and the share of owners under 45 has not fallen.

Hawaii, Mississippi and Rhode Island have the oldest owners; Utah the youngest at 14.7%

State 65+ owner shares in 2023 run from 14.7% in Utah to 31.4% in Hawaii. Most of the states between them cannot be separated from the US figure.

Hawaii is the only state where more than 30% of owners were 65 or older in 2023. Mississippi (28.4%), Rhode Island (28.2%) and Connecticut (27.8%) follow. At the young end, Utah (14.7%), Idaho (17.0%) and Colorado (19.7%) sit well below the US share of 23.1%.

State estimates carry standard errors of 0.3 to 3.1 points. Testing each state against the US share at 1.6 standard errors, 14 states are higher, 6 are lower and 31 are statistically indistinguishable. A state ranked 25th and one ranked 40th may not differ at all.

On the 55+ measure, 32 of 51 states have a majority of owners aged 55 or over. Rhode Island leads at 62.2% and Utah is lowest at 37.3%. For counts of firms by size in each state, see how many small businesses there are.

The 65+ share rose beyond the margin of error in 30 states and fell in none

Point estimates rose in 48 of 51 states between 2017 and 2023. In 30 the increase is larger than sampling error would explain.

Maine's 65+ owner share rose 6.6 points, Connecticut's 5.9 and Rhode Island's 5.8. New Jersey (5.4) and Massachusetts (5.1) also rose by more than five points.

Three states posted small declines in the point estimate: Kansas (-0.8), South Carolina (-0.3) and Idaho (-0.2). None of the three is outside the margin of error, so the data show no state where owners got measurably younger.

The 65+ standard error is larger in 2023 than in 2017 in 42 of 51 states, consistent with the smaller reference-year 2023 sample. A change counts here only when it exceeds 1.6 times the combined standard error of both years.

Rhode Island, Connecticut and Maine have three or more owners 55+ for every owner under 45

Dividing owners aged 55+ by owners under 45 gives a simple measure of how many older owners each younger owner is matched against. The US ratio was 2.17 in 2023, down from 2.31 in 2017.

Rhode Island had 3.59 owners aged 55+ for every owner under 45 in 2023. Connecticut (3.01) and Maine (3.01) are the only other states at three or more. Utah (1.19) and Idaho (1.34) are lowest.

18 areas have fewer than two older owners per younger owner: Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, North Dakota, Minnesota, Alaska, Washington, Kansas, South Dakota, Iowa, Colorado, Nevada, South Carolina, District of Columbia, Montana, Oregon, Texas, Nebraska. The ratio describes the age structure of existing owners only; buyers can come from outside a state and from outside the ranks of current owners.

Successor ratio (this report): Owners aged 55 or over divided by owners under 45, both from the same ABS table and year. Owners under 45 are derived by subtracting the three older bands from the total, which keeps the measure defined where Census suppresses the under-25 cell.

Wholesale and manufacturing owners are oldest; restaurant and school owners are youngest

The 65+ share by sector runs from 17.9% in accommodation and food services to 39.5% in management of companies and enterprises (NAICS 55), one of the three smallest sectors with 14,475 reporting owners.

Among sectors with more than 100,000 reporting owners, wholesale trade is oldest: 32.7% of owners were 65+ and 63.4% were 55+ in 2023. Manufacturing follows at 30.7% and 61.7%. Wholesale's 65+ share rose 6.8 points from 25.9% in 2017.

Construction has 552,579 reporting owners, the second-largest sector count, and a 65+ share of 19.9%. That share rose 4.6 points since 2017, beyond the margin of error. Accommodation and food services (17.9%) and educational services (18.2%) have the youngest owners.

Sector shares for 2017 use NAICS 2017 codes and 2023 shares use NAICS 2022 codes. At the 2-digit level the sector boundaries are close but not identical.

A large retiree population does not mean a state has older business owners

Nationally, 26.3% of civilian residents aged 25+ were 65 or older in mid-2023, more than the 23.1% of owners. Across states, the two measures are only loosely related (r = 0.38).

Florida's adult population is 30.6% age 65+, yet 22.7% of its employer-firm owners are 65+. Arizona shows the same gap (29.0% against 21.8%). Most residents aged 65+ own no employer firm, so a high resident share does not carry over to owners.

Owners were older than residents on this measure in only 8 areas, including Hawaii, Mississippi, Texas and the District of Columbia, and the margins are small in most. Idaho has the widest gap the other way: 17.0% of owners against 27.3% of residents.

Why this atlas counts owners, not businesses, and what it cannot show

The ABS records up to four owners per firm, and 34.8% of responding firms report two to four owners. Owner shares cannot be converted into firm counts without assumptions Census does not make.

In 2023, 61.0% of responding employer firms had one owner and 34.8% had two to four (Census table AB2300CSCB01). A firm with a 70-year-old founder and a 40-year-old partner appears once in each age band, so the 65+ owner share is not the share of firms with an owner 65+.

The ABS estimated 5,934,950 employer firms in scope for 2023. Multiplying that total by an owner share would mix two units, so this report does not publish a count of firms owned by people aged 55+ or 65+.

The owner tables carry only owner counts and percents. They do not report employees, payroll or receipts by owner age, so the employment and payroll held by firms with an owner aged 65+ is not available from published Census tables. The firm tables that carry employment and payroll classify owners by sex, ethnicity, race and veteran status, not by age.

Owner age is one input in a sale decision, not a forecast of one. For how a sale proceeds once an owner decides, see the six stages of a sale; for how often businesses close rather than sell, see how many businesses close each year.

State-by-state findings

1. 23.1% of owners of responding US employer firms were 65 or older in 2023, up from 20.1% in 2017 (Census ABS).^[1][7]
2. 51.3% of US employer-firm owners were 55 or older in 2023, against 50.8% in 2017.^[1][7]
3. The 55 to 64 band fell from 30.7% of owners in 2017 to 28.2% in 2023.^[1][7]
4. Under-55 owners were 48.7% of the total in 2023, so the median owner falls in the 55 to 64 band.^[1]
5. Hawaii had the highest 65+ owner share in 2023 at 31.4%, with a standard error of 1.0 points.^[1]
6. Utah had the lowest 65+ owner share in 2023 at 14.7%, 16.7 points below Hawaii.^[1]
7. States above the US 65+ share at 90% confidence in 2023: Hawaii, Mississippi, Rhode Island, Connecticut, West Virginia, Ohio, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Louisiana, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Missouri, Pennsylvania, New York.^[1][8]
8. States below the US 65+ share at 90% confidence in 2023: Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Colorado, Idaho, Utah.^[1][8]
9. Maine's 65+ owner share rose 6.6 points from 2017 to 2023, from 19.4% to 26.1%, the largest increase of any state.^[1][7]
10. Rhode Island had 3.59 owners aged 55+ for every owner under 45 in 2023; Utah had 1.19.^[1]
11. Wholesale trade's 65+ owner share rose from 25.9% in 2017 to 32.7% in 2023 (US).^[1][7]
12. Construction owners are younger than average: 19.9% were 65+ in 2023, up from 15.3% in 2017.^[1][7]
13. Florida residents aged 25+ were 30.6% age 65+ in mid-2023, but only 22.7% of Florida employer-firm owners were 65+.^[1][14]
14. 61.0% of responding US employer firms had a single owner in 2023 and 34.8% had two to four, so owner shares and firm shares differ.^[13]

Rankings and ratios we derived

Download the calculations (CSV)

Executive summary

• In reference year 2023, 23.1% of owners of responding US employer firms were 65 or older, 28.2% were 55 to 64 and 23.7% were under 45 (Census ABS table AB2300CSCBO).
• The 55+ share barely moved between 2017 (50.8%) and 2023 (51.3%). What changed is the mix inside it: the 65+ share gained 2.9 points while the 55 to 64 share lost 2.5 points.
• Hawaii (31.4%), Mississippi (28.4%) and Rhode Island (28.2%) had the highest 65+ shares in 2023; Utah (14.7%) and Idaho (17.0%) had the lowest.
• Only 20 of 51 states differ from the US 65+ share at 90% confidence (14 higher, 6 lower). The other 31 are statistically indistinguishable from the national rate.
• Between 2017 and 2023 the 65+ share rose beyond the margin of error in 30 states and fell beyond it in none.
• Wholesale trade (32.7%) and manufacturing (30.7%) have among the oldest owners; accommodation and food services (17.9%) has the youngest. Construction, with the second-largest owner count, sits below the US rate at 19.9%.
• The Census owner tables count people, not firms, and carry no employment or payroll by owner age, so the number of employees at firms with an owner 65+ is not published.

Frequently asked questions

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Reproduce this analysis

Every figure comes from the files below. The scripts that pulled and computed them are kept with the report and can be re-run.

Data quality and exclusions

• The state FIPS code column (ST) reads 00 on state rows of the owner file; states were keyed on the last two digits of GEO_ID instead (51 states and DC matched).
• Under-25 owner counts are suppressed (flag S) for 6 areas in 2023 (DC, Hawaii, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Vermont), and Montana's 'item not reported' cell is suppressed. Owners under 45 were therefore derived by subtraction for every area so the measure is consistent; no suppressed cell was treated as zero.
• Owners whose age was not reported (28,288 nationally in 2023) are excluded from denominators, following the Census 'total reporting' base.
• State owner counts sum to 4,294,215, more than the national 4,208,231, because multi-state firms count in each state; no state sum is used as a national figure.
• Sector 99 (industries not classified) was dropped from the sector table: 1 sector removed. Sector rows use 2-digit NAICS only, so 3-digit subsectors in the file were not used.
• Computed 65+ and 55 to 64 shares were checked against the published percents for all 51 states and 19 sectors and matched at one decimal.

Methodology

Selection: the only official source of owner age for US employer firms by state and industry is the Census Bureau's Annual Business Survey (ABS), Characteristics of Business Owners tables. We downloaded the bulk files for every reference year from 2017 to 2023 from www2.census.gov because the Census API now requires a key. Population benchmarks come from Census vintage 2025 state population estimates by single year of age.

Inclusion: rows for all owners (sex, ethnicity, race and veteran status all set to total), question O09 (OWNRAGE), national, state and 2-digit NAICS levels. Shares are computed as each band's count divided by owners with a reported age, and match the Census published percents to one decimal. Sector 99 (industries not classified) is excluded.

Unit: every figure counts owners of responding employer firms, never firms. Census applies no nonresponse weighting to the owner tables, so counts are not estimates of all US owners; percents are the reportable figures. No owner figure is multiplied by a firm count in this report.

Significance: Census publishes the standard error of each percent and recommends 1.6 standard errors for an approximate 90% confidence interval. A state differs from the US, or a change between 2017 and 2023 is reported as a rise or fall, only when the difference exceeds 1.6 times the square root of the summed squared standard errors.

Conflicts: popular articles quote 'over half of owners are 55+' from data year 2018 or label 2021 data as '2022'. We use reference years throughout and note the collection-year name once. Third-party figures that convert owner shares into firm counts were not used.

Derived metrics (successor ratio, owner-to-resident ratio, change tests, state counts) are reproducible from scripts/ and listed in derived_metrics.csv with input rows. Last updated 2026-11-02. Owners matched with brokers through our broker match form are not part of any figure here.

This report presents published data with its limitations. It is not legal, financial or investment advice.

Sources, ranked by quality

Tier 1: primary and official sources (17)

• [1] U.S. Census Bureau. ABS Characteristics of Business Owners, 2024 ABS (reference year 2023), table AB2300CSCBO (bulk file). Reference year 2023; file posted 2026-01-08. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [2] U.S. Census Bureau. ABS Characteristics of Business Owners, 2023 ABS (reference year 2022), table AB2200CSCBO. Reference year 2022; file posted 2024-12-19. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [3] U.S. Census Bureau. ABS Characteristics of Business Owners, 2022 ABS (reference year 2021), table AB2100CSCBO. Reference year 2021; file posted 2023-10-26. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [4] U.S. Census Bureau. ABS Characteristics of Business Owners, 2021 ABS (reference year 2020), table AB2000CSCBO. Reference year 2020. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [5] U.S. Census Bureau. ABS Characteristics of Business Owners, 2020 ABS (reference year 2019), table AB1900CSCBO. Reference year 2019. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [6] U.S. Census Bureau. ABS Characteristics of Business Owners, 2019 ABS (reference year 2018), table AB1800CSCBO. Reference year 2018. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [7] U.S. Census Bureau. ABS Characteristics of Business Owners, 2018 ABS (reference year 2017), table AB1700CSCBO. Reference year 2017; file posted 2022-11-10. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [8] U.S. Census Bureau. Annual Business Survey Methodology (2024 ABS). Reference year 2023. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [9] U.S. Census Bureau. 2024 ABS: Characteristics of Business Owners tables (Employer Businesses). Reference year 2023; page revised 2025-11-19. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [10] U.S. Census Bureau. 2018 ABS: Characteristics of Business Owners tables (Employer Businesses). Reference year 2017. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [11] U.S. Census Bureau. Annual Business Survey (ABS) APIs: notice on renaming and 2026 collection. Notice dated 2025-11-20. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [12] U.S. Census Bureau via Federal Register. Federal Register notice 2024-01127: Annual Business Survey information collection (sample size). Survey years 2024 to 2027. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [13] U.S. Census Bureau. ABS Characteristics of Businesses, 2024 ABS (reference year 2023), table AB2300CSCB01 (number of owners). Reference year 2023. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [14] U.S. Census Bureau. Annual Estimates of the Civilian Population by Single Year of Age and Sex, states (SC-EST2025-AGESEX-CIV). July 1, 2023 estimate, vintage 2025, released June 2026. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [15] U.S. Census Bureau. Business Owners' Ages: Over Half of U.S. Business Owners Were Age 55 and Over (graphic). Data year 2018; published 2020-09-25. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [16] U.S. Census Bureau. ABS data directory for data year 2024 (2025 ABS company information tables). Files posted 2026-03-05. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [17] U.S. Census Bureau. 2023 ABS: Characteristics of Business Owners tables (Employer Businesses). Reference year 2022. Accessed 2026-11-02.

Tier 3: journalism and expert commentary (2)

• [18] CT Acquisitions. The Succession Cliff Report 2026: Business Ownership Transitions by State and Sector. ABS reference year 2023 shares; July 2026. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [19] Accredited. Is the Silver Tsunami Real? What the Data Actually Says About Boomer Business Sales. 2026 article. Accessed 2026-11-02.