Buying an Existing Business Statistics: How Many US Owners Bought Their Company Instead of Starting It (2026)

How the index is built

Download the calculations (CSV)

Four routes into ownership, and how often each was taken: buying an existing business statistics for 2017

The Census Bureau asked owners of employer businesses how they first acquired ownership. In reference year 2017, 22.1% said they purchased the business, 68.9% founded or started it, 4.4% inherited it and 7.4% received it as a transfer of ownership or gift.

These buying an existing business statistics come from the 2018 Annual Business Survey (ABS), which covers reference year 2017. The form asked, for each of up to four owners, "How did Owner 1 initially acquire ownership of this business? Select all that apply," with four options: founded or started, purchased, inherited, and received transfer of ownership or gift (2018 ABS questionnaire).

Owner, not firm: Every share on this page that describes acquisition is a share of owners. A firm with three partners who bought it together counts three times. The capital figures further down are shares of firms. The two are never mixed.

Because owners could tick more than one box, the four shares add to 102.8%. An owner who founded a firm with a partner and later bought the partner out can appear as both founder and buyer. The purchased share has a standard error of 1.0 point, so its 90% interval runs from 20.5% to 23.7%.

Put as ratios: 32.0 owners bought their business for every 100 who founded one, and 5.06 owners bought for every owner who inherited. Inheritance is the rarest of the four routes in all 19 sectors; it comes closest to buying in mining, where 13.7% inherited and 16.4% bought.

• Women owners: 20.2% purchased; men: 22.9% (2017, US).
• Asian owners: 28.8% purchased, the highest of the race groups the ABS publishes; White owners 21.5%; Black or African American owners 13.6%; Hispanic owners 15.6% (2017, US).
• Veteran owners: 21.6% purchased, against 22.1% for nonveterans (2017, US).

Restaurants and shops change hands; contractors and consultants start from scratch

The share of owners who bought their business ranges from 38.1% in accommodation and food services to 12.1% in construction, a ratio of 3.15. Retail trade (34.1%), manufacturing (27.5%) and other services such as repair shops and salons (27.1%) also sit well above the US share of 22.1%.

The purchase index sets the US share to 100. Accommodation and food services scores 172 and retail trade 154; construction scores 55 and professional, scientific and technical services 65. The survey does not ask why. One reading consistent with the ranking: a restaurant, store or plant comes with a location, equipment and walk-in customers that a buyer can take over, while many contracting and consulting firms rest on the owner's own skills and relationships.

Health care and social assistance is a case apart. Its bought share (23.8%) is near the US average, but only 1.0% of its owners inherited the business, so buyers outnumber heirs 24.4 to 1, the widest ratio of any sector. Mining (16.4% bought, 13.7% inherited) has the narrowest, at 1.2.

The ranking is stable. Across the 19 sectors, the 2016 Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs and the 2017 ABS have a rank correlation of 0.98. In 2016, accommodation and food services was also first (35.2%) and construction last (11.4%).

South Dakota owners bought in twice as often as Florida owners

By state, the bought share runs from 33.4% in South Dakota to 16.8% in Florida, a ratio of 1.99. Sixteen states are above the US share of 22.1% beyond the 90% margin of error, nine are below it, and 26 cannot be told apart from it.

The top of the ranking is a block of Plains and Upper Midwest states: South Dakota (33.4%), Iowa (32.5%), North Dakota (32.3%), Wisconsin (31.7%), Nebraska (29.1%) and Minnesota (28.8%). The bottom is fast-growing or coastal: Florida (16.8%), Hawaii (17.6%), Utah (18.4%), Nevada (18.8%), New York (18.9%) and California (19.7%).

Pooling the state counts by Census division gives the same picture: 28.5% of owners in the West North Central division bought their business, against 18.9% in the South Atlantic division, a ratio of 1.51.

Among the 22 metro areas with at least 40,000 reporting owners, Detroit-Warren-Dearborn has the highest bought share (24.1%), followed by St. Louis (23.4%) and Minneapolis-St. Paul (22.8%). Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach is lowest (13.7%), behind Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim (16.6%) and Atlanta (17.2%).

Between 21% and 22% of owners bought in, in every survey from 2012 to 2017

Five Census surveys asked the same four-option question of employer-business owners. The bought share stayed between 21.0% (2014) and 22.1% (2017), a range of 1.1 points. No ABS cycle after reference year 2017 has asked it again.

The 2012 Survey of Business Owners also covered businesses without employees. Only 7.9% of nonemployer owners had bought their business, against 21.7% of employer-business owners, a ratio of 2.75. Across all owners combined, the 2012 bought share was 11.3%.

The SBA Office of Advocacy's fact sheet cites 16% purchased for nonemployer owners and 66% founded for employer owners in 2007. Those figures come from the 2007 Survey of Business Owners, which this report did not re-tabulate, so 2007 is shown here only as context.

The older the firm, the more likely its owner bought it

In 2016, 17.1% of owners of firms under two years old had bought the business, rising to 26.1% for firms in business 16 years or more. Owners of the oldest firms were 1.53 times as likely to be buyers as owners of the youngest.

The gradient is gentle until year 15 (17.1% to 19.9%) and then jumps. A business has to survive long enough to be worth buying, and each change of hands adds a buyer to the owner roster while the firm keeps its age. The share under two years is not zero because a purchase can create a new legal entity that Census records as a young firm.

The ABS does not cross-tabulate how ownership was acquired with the owner's age or the firm's employment size, so neither breakdown can be built from the published files. For the age of current owners, see the business owner age by state report.

How owners paid to start or buy: savings first, banks a distant second

In 2017, 64.5% of employer firms used personal or family savings to start or initially acquire the business. A bank loan was named by 16.6%, a government-guaranteed bank loan (the form's option for SBA-backed loans) by 1.6%, and family or friends by 3.8%. The question covers starting and buying together.

The capital question reads "what was the source(s) of capital used to start or initially acquire this business? Select all that apply." Because it does not separate founders from buyers, no published figure shows how bought businesses alone were financed. Shares are of the 3,153,971 firms (weighted) that answered; 12.3% did not know and 10.4% needed no capital.

Size changes the mix. Savings were used by 68.3% of firms with 1 to 4 employees but 21.0% of firms with 500 or more, a gap of 47.3 points. Bank loans peak in the middle: 23.6% of firms with 10 to 19 employees. Larger firms answer "don't know" more often (45.9% at 500 or more), usually because the founding or purchase predates the current respondent.

Amounts were small for most firms. 35.0% of firms started or acquired the business with less than $25,000 and 17.2% with $100,000 or more; 20.5% did not know the amount. Buyers typically need more than founders, but the ABS does not publish the amounts by acquisition method.

What the 2023 survey still shows: when owners took over, and how their last business ended

The 2024 ABS (reference year 2023, released November 20, 2025) dropped the acquisition-method and capital-source questions but kept the year ownership was acquired and the fate of the owner's prior business. 14.8% of owners reporting took ownership in 2020 to 2023, by any route.

Of owners answering in 2023, 33.7% acquired ownership in 2010 to 2019, 19.2% in 2000 to 2009 and 14.4% did not know the year. The single-year shares for 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 were 4.3%, 4.9%, 4.3% and 1.3%. These count surviving owners only: an owner who took over in 2021 and closed or sold by 2023 is not in the data.

Among owners who had owned a business before, 5.5% said that prior business was purchased by another company or individual and 16.5% said it was no longer in operation: 3.0 closures for every sale. Most of the rest still owned the earlier business. The 2017 survey worded the question differently (8.3% sold among owners answering), so the two years are not compared.

The 2024 ABS sample was cut to about 330,000 employer businesses from about 850,000 in the 2023 ABS, and Census says owner estimates are percents among owners of responding firms. For the number of businesses that exist, see how many small businesses there are; for what a sale involves, see the six stages of a sale.

Key findings

1. 22.1% of owners of US employer businesses purchased their business, reference year 2017 (90% interval 20.5% to 23.7%).^[1][12]
2. 68.9% of owners founded or started their business, 4.4% inherited it and 7.4% received it as a transfer or gift, US, 2017; the shares sum to 102.8% because more than one answer was allowed.^[1][9]
3. Owners who bought outnumbered owners who inherited by 5.06 to 1, US, 2017.^[1]
4. 38.1% of accommodation and food services owners bought their business, the highest of 19 sectors, US, 2017.^[1]
5. 12.1% of construction owners bought their business, the lowest of 19 sectors, US, 2017; professional, scientific and technical services was next lowest at 14.3%.^[1]
6. Health care and social assistance owners bought their business 24.4 times as often as they inherited it (23.8% versus 1.0%), US, 2017.^[1]
7. South Dakota had the highest bought share of any state (33.4%) and Florida the lowest (16.8%), 2017.^[1]
8. The West North Central division had a bought share of 28.5% and the South Atlantic division 18.9%, computed from state owner counts, 2017.^[1]
9. Among the 22 largest metro areas by reporting owners, Detroit-Warren-Dearborn ranked first (24.1%) and Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach last (13.7%), 2017.^[1]
10. The employer bought share was 21.7% in 2012, 21.0% in 2014, 21.1% in 2015, 21.3% in 2016 and 22.1% in 2017.^{[8][7][6][5][1]}
11. 7.9% of nonemployer-business owners had bought their business in 2012, against 21.7% of employer-business owners.^[8]
12. 26.1% of owners of firms in business 16 or more years had bought them, against 17.1% for firms under two years old, US, 2016.^[5]
13. 64.5% of US employer firms used personal or family savings to start or initially acquire the business, 2017.^[2]
14. 16.6% of US employer firms used a bank loan and 1.6% a government-guaranteed bank loan to start or acquire the business, 2017.^[2][9]
15. Among 2023 owners with a prior business, 5.5% said it had been sold and 16.5% said it had closed.^[4]

Summary for decision makers

• In reference year 2017, 22.1% of owners of US employer businesses had purchased their business, 68.9% founded it, 4.4% inherited it and 7.4% received it as a transfer or gift (Census ABS).
• Buying is most common in accommodation and food services (38.1% of owners) and retail trade (34.1%), and least common in construction (12.1%): a 3.15-to-1 gap.
• South Dakota (33.4%), Iowa (32.5%) and North Dakota (32.3%) have the highest bought shares; Florida (16.8%) the lowest. Sixteen states are above the US share beyond the margin of error, nine below.
• The bought share held between 21.0% and 22.1% in five surveys from 2012 to 2017.
• Owners of firms 16 or more years old were more likely to be buyers (26.1%) than owners of firms under two years old (17.1%), 2016.
• Personal or family savings funded the start or purchase of 64.5% of employer firms; bank loans 16.6%; government-guaranteed loans, including SBA-backed ones, 1.6% (2017).
• The 2024 ABS (reference year 2023) no longer asks how ownership was acquired, so 2017 remains the latest national figure.

Frequently asked questions

Related guides, services and research

• Find the right broker to sell your business
• Age of small business owners by state
• Sales Tax on Sale of Business Assets: Occasional Sale Exemptions in 51 Jurisdictions (2026)
• SUTA Successor Rules by State: When a Buyer Inherits the Seller's Unemployment Tax Rate (2026)
• Who Can Own a Dental Practice? State Rules on Non-Dentist Ownership and What They Mean for Sellers (2026)
• Bulk Sales Law by State: Tax Clearance Certificates and Notice Deadlines (2026)
• All business sale research

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

• Kept only all-owner rows: 1,985,403 rows of the 2017 owner file and 439,317 rows of the 2023 owner file passed the demographic-total filter; the rest are sex, ethnicity, race or veteran splits.
• Dropped 'Item not reported' rows (23,615 owners in 2017) from every share; Census excludes them from the percent base.
• Excluded NAICS 99 'Industries not classified' (13,634 owners reporting) from the industry ranking.
• Limited metro areas to the 22 Metro Areas (not Micro Areas, CSAs or divisions) with at least 40,000 owners reporting, out of 382 metro and micro areas with data, to keep standard errors small.
• The SBO 2012 bundle SBOCBO2012.zip failed its integrity check twice on 2026-11-02 (identical bytes both times), so the per-table file SB1200CSCBO01.zip was used instead.
• Checked suppression flags (D, S, X, N) on every cell used: no purchased-share cell for the US, states, sectors or the 22 metros was suppressed. The 'Item not reported' percent cells carry flag X and are not used.
• Checked that no ABS cycle for reference years 2018 to 2022 carries ACQBUS, using the official AB1800CSCBO to AB2200CSCBO zips (copies downloaded from www2.census.gov on 2026-11-02 for the sister report on owner age): their only acquisition-related item is YRACQBUS.
• Downloaded but not used: 2017 tables AB1700CSCB02 and AB1700CSCB03 and 2023 tables AB2300CSCB01 to AB2300CSCB05, which do not carry an acquisition-method item.

Methodology

Selection. The question is answered from the Census Bureau's own bulk files: the 2018 Annual Business Survey owner table AB1700CSCBO (reference year 2017), its business tables AB1700CSCB01 and AB1700CSCB04, the 2024 ABS owner table AB2300CSCBO (reference year 2023), the 2014 to 2016 Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs owner bundles and the 2012 Survey of Business Owners table SB1200CSCBO01. All are Tier 1. The SBA Office of Advocacy fact sheet is used only to compare published figures. Question wording comes from the 2018 ABS questionnaire.

Inclusion. Only rows for all owners (no sex, ethnicity, race or veteran split) are used, except the demographic list in the first section. Geography: US (GEOTYPE 01), states (02) and metro areas (08). Industry: all sectors and 2-digit NAICS sectors; 'Industries not classified' is excluded from the ranking. Metro areas are limited to those with at least 40,000 owners reporting (weighted), which leaves 22.

Units. Acquisition figures are shares of owners; capital figures are shares of firms. Shares are the Census-published percents. Regional figures are computed from counts (sum of purchased owners over sum of owners reporting), not by averaging state percents.

Significance. Census gives a standard error for each percent. Following the ABS methodology, a 90% interval is the estimate plus or minus 1.6 standard errors. A state or sector is called above or below the US share only when its interval excludes 22.1%.

Conflicts. The SBA fact sheet (March 2021) gives 67% founded for 2017; the current Census file gives 68.9%. The current file is used. The SBA's 16% nonemployer figure for 2007 is reported as context only because the 2007 file was not re-tabulated.

Derived metrics (ratios, index values, division shares, rank correlation, prior-business outcomes) are listed with formulas and input rows in derived_metrics.csv and reproduced by the scripts in the scripts folder.

Limits. The acquisition question was last asked for 2017. It is select-all-that-apply. Owner estimates are not adjusted for nonresponse. The capital question does not separate starting from buying. Last updated 2026-11-02.

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 (18)

• [1] U.S. Census Bureau. ABS Characteristics of Business Owners, 2018 ABS (reference year 2017), table AB1700CSCBO. 2017. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [2] U.S. Census Bureau. ABS Characteristics of Businesses, 2018 ABS (reference year 2017), table AB1700CSCB01. 2017. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [3] U.S. Census Bureau. ABS Characteristics of Businesses by employment size of firm, 2018 ABS, table AB1700CSCB04. 2017. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [4] U.S. Census Bureau. ABS Characteristics of Business Owners, 2024 ABS (reference year 2023), table AB2300CSCBO. 2023. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [5] U.S. Census Bureau. Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs 2016, owner characteristics (ASECBO2016). 2016. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [6] U.S. Census Bureau. Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs 2015, owner characteristics (ASECBO2015). 2015. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [7] U.S. Census Bureau. Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs 2014, owner characteristics (ASECBO2014). 2014. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [8] U.S. Census Bureau. Survey of Business Owners 2012, table SB1200CSCBO01. 2012. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [9] U.S. Census Bureau. 2018 Annual Business Survey questionnaire (informational copy). 2017. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [10] U.S. Census Bureau. ABS Characteristics of Business Owners: 2018 Tables (Employer Businesses). 2017. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [11] U.S. Census Bureau. 2024 ABS Characteristics of Business Owners (Employer Businesses). 2023. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [12] U.S. Census Bureau. Annual Business Survey Methodology. 2023. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [13] U.S. Census Bureau. Annual Business Survey Methodology, 2018 ABS. 2017. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [14] U.S. Census Bureau. Census Bureau Releases New Data About Characteristics of Employer and Nonemployer Business Owners (CB25-TPS.77). 2023. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [15] U.S. Census Bureau (Federal Register). Federal Register notice 2024-01127: Annual Business Survey. 2022 to 2023. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [16] U.S. Small Business Administration, Office of Advocacy. Small Business Facts: Paths to Business Ownership, March 2021 (Internet Archive copy, captured 2026-05-21). 2007 to 2017. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [17] U.S. Census Bureau. ABS bulk data directory, reference years 2017 to 2025. 2017 to 2025. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [18] U.S. Census Bureau. Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs (ASE) program page. 2014 to 2017. Accessed 2026-11-02.