How Many Small Businesses Are There in the US? State Counts by Size (2026)

How many small businesses are there in the US once owner-only firms are counted separately

The familiar 36.2 million figure is real, but 82.4 percent of it is businesses with no employees. Splitting the two Census programs gives a smaller and more useful picture of firms with staff.

The Census Bureau's Nonemployer Statistics counted 31,985,874 businesses with no paid employees in the United States in 2024, released September 29, 2026. These are mostly sole proprietors, freelancers and side businesses that file a business tax return and report at least $1,000 in receipts ($1 in construction).

The Census Bureau's Statistics of U.S. Businesses counted 6,395,635 employer firms in the United States in 2022, released April 2025. Of those, 6,374,594 firms (99.67 percent) had fewer than 500 employees. SUSB 2022 is still the latest SUSB year on the Census program page as of October 28, 2026.

Adding the two 2022 counts reproduces the SBA Office of Advocacy's 2025 Small Business Profile total exactly: 29,811,495 nonemployers plus 6,374,594 employer firms under 500 employees equals 36,186,089 small businesses in 2022.

Most US employer firms have fewer than five employees

In 2022, 63.0 percent of US employer firms had fewer than 5 employees, and only 21,041 firms had 500 or more.

SUSB counted 4,029,041 US employer firms with fewer than 5 employees in 2022. This class includes firms that had no one on payroll in the March 12 pay period but paid employees at some time during the year.

Firms with 5 to 99 employees numbered 2,252,212 in 2022, 35.2 percent of US employer firms. Those firms employed 37,631,270 people in March 2022, 27.7 percent of employer-firm employment.

Firms with 100 to 499 employees numbered 93,341 in 2022. Firms with fewer than 500 employees employed 62,250,556 people, 45.9 percent of US employer-firm employment.

About 2.25 million firms sit in the 5 to 99 employee band

Only 1 in 16 US businesses had 5 to 99 employees in 2022 (6.2 percent of 36,207,130 businesses). Per resident, Wyoming has the most of these firms among states and Arizona the fewest.

Brokerable band: Our label for employer firms with 5 to 99 employees, used in this report as a proxy for the businesses a business broker or M&A advisor would typically sell. It is not a Census or SBA category, and employee count alone does not decide whether a business can be sold.

The US had 6.74 firms with 5 to 99 employees per 1,000 residents in 2022. The median state rate was 7.07.

Wyoming had 10.68 firms with 5 to 99 employees per 1,000 residents in 2022, the highest of the 50 states. Arizona had 5.62, the lowest. The gap between the two is a ratio of 1.90. The District of Columbia (11.08) ranks first of 51, but its resident population is small relative to the people who work there.

Large states rank low per resident. Texas had 181,333 firms with 5 to 99 employees in 2022, second only to California's 285,425, yet ranks 46th of 51 at 6.02 per 1,000 residents.

Counts for every state, and why they add up to more than the national total

The 51 state rows of SUSB sum to 6,604,618 employer firms, 208,983 more than the US total, because a firm is counted once in each state where it operates.

Census defines a firm within a geographic area: establishments of one company in the same state and industry count as one firm there. A plumbing company with branches in three states appears once in each state's count and once nationally.

For the 5 to 99 band the overlap is small. State counts sum to 2,288,199, 35,987 more than the US total of 2,252,212, an excess of 1.6 percent. Size is always the firm's national employment, so a 60-person firm with 10 staff in a second state counts as a 5 to 99 firm in both states.

Nonemployer counts do not have this problem: the 51 state counts for 2024 sum to 31,985,874, exactly the US total.

Florida has the most owner-only businesses per resident and the thinnest middle

Florida had 147.3 nonemployer businesses per 1,000 residents in 2024, the most of any state, while only 4.1 percent of its 2022 businesses had 5 to 99 employees, the lowest share.

North Dakota had the highest share of businesses with 5 to 99 employees in 2022 at 9.3 percent. Florida had the lowest at 4.1 percent, below Georgia and Texas.

Florida also had the largest share of employer firms with fewer than 5 employees in 2022 (70.2 percent) and the fastest growth in nonemployer businesses from 2022 to 2024 (15.5 percent). West Virginia had the fewest nonemployers per resident among states, 55.1 per 1,000 in 2024.

A high owner-only count signals self-employment, not a deep pool of firms with staff. A state can rank first on total small businesses per person and last on the share that have 5 to 99 employees.

Six in ten owner-only businesses take in less than $25,000 a year

Of 31,985,874 US nonemployer businesses in 2024, 19,304,669 (60.4 percent) reported receipts under $25,000, and 1,509,830 (4.7 percent) reported $250,000 or more.

126,356 US nonemployer businesses reported receipts of $1 million or more in 2024. Some owner-only businesses at that size, such as consulting practices or real estate holding entities, can change hands, but most nonemployers are income streams tied to one person.

Census notes that some businesses with employees are wrongly included in the nonemployer universe, which it calls the main source of nonsampling error in the series.

What counts as a small business depends on who is counting

The SBA Office of Advocacy uses fewer than 500 employees for research counts; SBA contracting size standards vary by industry and use employees or receipts.

The SBA Office of Advocacy's 2025 profile defines small businesses as firms with fewer than 500 employees and reports 36.2 million small businesses, 99.9 percent of US businesses, employing 62.3 million people (45.9 percent of employees).

For federal contracting, SBA size standards are set for each NAICS industry. Most manufacturers with 500 employees or fewer, and most non-manufacturers with average annual receipts under $7.5 million, qualify as small, with exceptions by industry.

Neither definition matches how a business sale is priced. Brokers look at earnings, owner dependence and transferability; the six stages of a sale explain how that plays out. For broker licensing rules by state, see business broker license requirements by state.

The numbers in one list

1. The US had 31,985,874 nonemployer businesses (no paid employees) in 2024, the latest Census year, released September 29, 2026.^[7][9]
2. US nonemployer businesses grew 5.1 percent from 2023 to 2024 and 7.3 percent from 2022 to 2024.^[7][12][13]
3. The US had 6,395,635 employer firms in 2022, the latest SUSB year; 6,374,594 of them had fewer than 500 employees.^[1][20]
4. 63.0 percent of US employer firms (4,029,041) had fewer than 5 employees in 2022.^[1]
5. 2,252,212 US employer firms had 5 to 99 employees in 2022, 35.2 percent of employer firms.^[1]
6. Firms with 5 to 99 employees were 6.2 percent of all 36,207,130 US businesses in 2022, about 1 in 16.^[1][12]
7. US firms with 5 to 99 employees rose by 74,827 (3.4 percent) from 2021 to 2022, faster than all employer firms (1.6 percent).^[1][6]
8. Wyoming had 10.68 firms with 5 to 99 employees per 1,000 residents in 2022, the highest state rate; Arizona had 5.62, the lowest.^[1][14]
9. California had 285,425 firms with 5 to 99 employees in 2022, the most of any state; California, Texas, New York and Florida held 32.9 percent of the state-level total.^[1]
10. Florida had 147.3 nonemployer businesses per 1,000 residents in 2024, the highest of any state.^[8][14]
11. Only 4.1 percent of Florida businesses had 5 to 99 employees in 2022, the lowest share; North Dakota was highest at 9.3 percent.^[1][12]
12. 60.4 percent of US nonemployer businesses reported receipts under $25,000 in 2024.^[7][19]
13. State SUSB counts sum to 208,983 more employer firms than the 2022 US total because multi-state firms are counted in each state.^[1][5]

Calculations

Download the calculations (CSV)

Summary

• The US had 31,985,874 owner-only businesses in 2024 and 6,374,594 employer firms under 500 employees in 2022.
• The SBA's 36.2 million figure is 82.4 percent businesses with no employees.
• 2,252,212 firms had 5 to 99 employees in 2022, about 1 in 16 US businesses.
• 63.0 percent of employer firms had fewer than 5 employees.
• Wyoming leads the states on firms with 5 to 99 employees per resident (10.68 per 1,000); Arizona trails (5.62).
• Florida has the most owner-only businesses per resident (147.3 per 1,000) and the lowest 5 to 99 share (4.1 percent).
• State employer counts overlap: they sum to 208,983 more firms than the US total.

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

• Checked all 1352 NAICS-total rows in the SUSB 2022 file: every one of the 52 geographies has all 26 size classes and a numeric firm count. No firm count is suppressed (no D, S, X or N flags).
• SUSB employment noise flags in those rows: 1303 low (G, under 2 percent), 45 moderate (H) and 4 high (J). Firm counts are not noise-infused, so no rows were removed.
• Nonemployer state rows (51 for 2024, 51 for 2022) carry no establishment suppression flag; the 2024 state counts sum to the US total with a difference of 0.
• Population file: the Puerto Rico row was dropped because SUSB and NES state files used here cover the 50 states and the District of Columbia only.
• The District of Columbia is kept in all tables but left out of the 50-state highest, lowest and median statistics, because its resident population understates its workforce.
• SBA Office of Advocacy pages returned HTTP 403 to scripted requests; the 2025 profile was read from an Internet Archive copy of the official PDF and used only as a comparison.

Methodology

Source selection. We used the newest release of each federal program as of October 28, 2026: Nonemployer Statistics 2024 (released September 29, 2026), Statistics of U.S. Businesses 2022 (released April 2025; the Census program page lists 2022 as the latest year) and Vintage 2025 state population estimates (released January 27, 2026). All files were downloaded from www2.census.gov and are saved unmodified in the raw folder. The Census Data API was not used because it now requires a key.

Inclusion rules. Employer counts use the SUSB file of US and state data by detailed enterprise employment size, NAICS total rows only. The 5 to 99 band is the sum of ten SUSB size classes from 5 to 9 through 75 to 99. Nonemployer counts use NAICS total, all legal forms. Rates per 1,000 residents use the population estimate for the same year as the business count.

Conflicting numbers. Secondary sites quote totals from 34.8 million to 36.2 million because they cite different SBA profile editions. We rebuilt the SBA 2025 profile total from the raw Census files and matched it exactly, then reported the newer 2024 nonemployer count separately rather than silently adding years.

Derived metrics. Every calculation is in derived_metrics.csv and reproducible with scripts/compute.py, which reads only the raw files. Formulas are shown in the Calculations section.

Limitations. SUSB excludes crop and animal production, rail transportation, postal service, private households, public administration and most government employers. Nonemployer Statistics excludes crop and animal production, postal service, funds and trusts, management of companies, private households and public administration, and includes only businesses with at least $1,000 in receipts ($1 in construction). Employment figures carry Census noise infusion; firm counts do not.

Last updated October 28, 2026. Sell My Business Broker also runs a broker match form for owners; it played no part in this analysis, and the report contains no paid placements.

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 (20)

• [1] U.S. Census Bureau. Statistics of U.S. Businesses 2022: U.S. and states, NAICS, detailed employment sizes (dataset). 2022 (employment in week of March 12). Accessed 2026-10-28.
• [2] U.S. Census Bureau. 2022 SUSB Annual Data Tables by Establishment Industry. 2022, released April 2025. Accessed 2026-10-28.
• [3] U.S. Census Bureau. Statistics of U.S. Businesses: About this program (coverage). program documentation. Accessed 2026-10-28.
• [4] U.S. Census Bureau. Statistics of U.S. Businesses: Methodology (exclusions, disclosure avoidance). program documentation, page revised 2026-07-23. Accessed 2026-10-28.
• [5] U.S. Census Bureau. Statistics of U.S. Businesses: Glossary (firm, enterprise size). program documentation. Accessed 2026-10-28.
• [6] U.S. Census Bureau. Statistics of U.S. Businesses 2021: U.S. and states, NAICS, detailed employment sizes (dataset). 2021. Accessed 2026-10-28.
• [7] U.S. Census Bureau. Nonemployer Statistics 2024: United States file (nonemp24us.zip). 2024. Accessed 2026-10-28.
• [8] U.S. Census Bureau. Nonemployer Statistics 2024: state file (nonemp24st.zip). 2024. Accessed 2026-10-28.
• [9] U.S. Census Bureau. Nonemployer Statistics: Tables page (2024 NES tables dated September 29, 2026). release listing. Accessed 2026-10-28.
• [10] U.S. Census Bureau. Nonemployer Statistics: About this program (coverage and excluded industries). program documentation. Accessed 2026-10-28.
• [11] U.S. Census Bureau. Nonemployer Statistics: Methodology (nonsampling error, suppression). program documentation. Accessed 2026-10-28.
• [12] U.S. Census Bureau. Nonemployer Statistics 2022: United States and state files (nonemp22us.zip, nonemp22st.zip). 2022. Accessed 2026-10-28.
• [13] U.S. Census Bureau. Nonemployer Statistics 2023: United States file (nonemp23us.zip). 2023. Accessed 2026-10-28.
• [14] U.S. Census Bureau. Vintage 2025 state population estimates (NST-EST2025-ALLDATA.csv). July 1, 2020 to July 1, 2025. Accessed 2026-10-28.
• [15] U.S. Census Bureau. New Population Estimates Show Historic Decline in Net International Migration (Vintage 2025 release, January 27, 2026). Vintage 2025. Accessed 2026-10-28.
• [16] U.S. Small Business Administration, Office of Advocacy. United States 2025 Small Business Profile (Internet Archive copy of the official PDF, captured 2026-10-27). NES 2022 and SUSB 2022 counts. Accessed 2026-10-28.
• [17] U.S. Small Business Administration, Office of Advocacy. 2025 Small Business Profiles for the States, Territories, and Nation (Internet Archive copy, released June 30, 2025). 2025 edition. Accessed 2026-10-28.
• [18] U.S. Small Business Administration. Size standards (federal contracting guide). current as of 2026-10-28. Accessed 2026-10-28.
• [19] U.S. Census Bureau. Nonemployer Statistics record layout, United States file (receipt size classes). record layout. Accessed 2026-10-28.
• [20] U.S. Census Bureau. Statistics of U.S. Businesses program page (Latest Data: 2022). program page. Accessed 2026-10-28.

Tier 3: journalism and expert commentary (3)

• [21] USAFacts. What role do small businesses play in the economy? (updated December 18, 2025). cites SBA June 2025 profile. Accessed 2026-10-28.
• [22] Oberlo. How Many Small Businesses Are There in the US? (updated December 2024). cites SBA 2024 figures. Accessed 2026-10-28.
• [23] Axis Intelligence. Small Business Statistics by State 2026. cites SBA 2025 profiles and Vintage 2025 population. Accessed 2026-10-28.