How many businesses are in the US: 36.2 million, and what each official count measures

This page is for anyone who needs the number, and for sellers, founders and analysts who need to know which number to use when sizing a market. It sets the official counts side by side, explains why they differ, breaks them down by size, industry and state, and shows how to turn a count into a list of named companies.

How many businesses there are in the US

NES counts a business only if it had receipts of at least $1,000 in the year ($1 in construction). The 2024 nonemployer count is 7.3% above 2022, while the latest employer firm count is still 2022, so adding the two newest figures gives about 38.4 million. That sum is our calculation across two years, not an official figure.

Why the counts differ

• Firms are not establishments. A firm is the company; an establishment is one location. In 2022, 6,395,635 employer firms ran 8,298,562 establishments. The 2,262 firms with 5,000 or more employees ran 913,729 of them. If you sell to head offices, count firms; if you sell to sites (a cleaning contract, a vending route), count establishments.
• Most businesses have no employees. Nonemployers are 82.3% of all businesses. Most are one person's sole proprietorship, filed on a tax return.
• The SBA's "small business" figure includes large firms. The SBA reports 36,207,130 small businesses, which is the sum of all 6,395,635 employer firms and 29,811,495 nonemployers, so it includes the 21,041 firms with 500 or more employees. Strictly, 2022 had 36,186,089 businesses under 500 employees.
• Release years are not data years. The SBA's February 2026 FAQ counts 2022. A figure labelled with the year it was published can describe a year three or four earlier.
• BLS counts more establishments. QCEW is built from state unemployment insurance records rather than the Census Bureau's business register, uses a different reporting unit, and includes employers CBP leaves out, such as private households (184,901 establishments in 2025). Use it for jobs and wages, not to count companies.
• Registered entities aren't operating businesses. New York's register lists 4,307,766 active entities, against 460,514 employer firms and 2,097,883 nonemployers in the state. Registers keep holding companies, dormant LLCs, out-of-state companies authorized to trade there and 288,194 domestic nonprofit corporations.

Businesses by size

These are Census SUSB figures for 2022. Size is the whole company's employment in March, nationally.

The 2,262 firms with 5,000 or more employees employ 49,310,128 people, 36.3% of the total. Firms under 500 employ 62,250,556 (45.9%).

Small businesses and nonemployers

The SBA Office of Advocacy defines a small business for research as an independent business with fewer than 500 employees. For federal contracts the SBA uses a separate size standard for each industry, set by employees or revenue (see small business size standards).

Nonemployers are small by definition, and most are very small. These are the Census Bureau's 2024 figures:

Together they took in $1.86 trillion in 2024, an average of about $58,200 each (our calculation).

Businesses by industry

A firm active in several sectors is counted once in each, so the sector rows add up to more than the national total. Transportation has the most nonemployers of any sector, mostly self-employed drivers: 1,602,297 in taxi and limousine service and 1,595,662 couriers and messengers. To count one industry precisely, find its code with the NAICS code lookup.

Businesses by state

A company with employees in several states is counted as a firm in each, so state counts add up to 6,604,618, more than the national 6,395,635.

How to get a list of businesses

Census counts never name a business: federal law bars the Census Bureau from publishing data that identify any establishment. Names come from registers, each covering part of the economy:

Registers tell you a company exists, not whether it's trading, how big it is or who buys there. The practical order is: size the market from the Census counts, pull names from the register that fits your segment, then check each company is active and find the buyer.

Using the counts to size a market

The size split changes how you sell more than any other figure here. As general guidance:

A product priced for firms with 20 to 99 employees has a national market of 561,160 companies before you narrow by industry or state. That figure is your total addressable market in companies; multiply by an annual contract value to get dollars.

Worked example: safety training for Texas contractors

Illustrative example. The company and its rates are invented; the counts are Census SUSB figures for 2022.

Ridgeline Safety (ridgeline.example) sells OSHA safety training to construction contractors and wants a target list in Texas.

1. Count the segment. Texas has 52,919 construction firms. Of these, 46,770 have fewer than 20 employees (too small to pay for on-site training), 4,813 have 20 to 99 and 939 have 100 to 499. Ridgeline targets the 4,813, which employ 188,960 people.
2. Check the fit. That's about 39 employees per firm, enough for a crew session each quarter.
3. Do the arithmetic. If Ridgeline finds a named owner or safety manager at an illustrative 60% of the 4,813 firms, it has 2,888 contacts. A 3% reply rate gives about 87 conversations; closing 20% gives 17 customers. At an illustrative $6,000 a year each, that's $102,000 in annual revenue from one state and one size band.
4. Build the list. The Census count is the ceiling. The names come from the Texas Secretary of State register and city permit records; finding the person who books training at each firm is the slow part, and Bebop finds those contacts and researches each company in the list.

Next step: turn the count into named accounts with our guide to building a prospect list.