The U.S. Census Bureau has released new data on the characteristics of business owners in the United States, offering detailed demographic information for both employer and nonemployer businesses. The release provides, for the first time, estimates of employer firms by owner characteristics, industry sector, and congressional district.
The information is drawn from two main sources: the Annual Business Survey (ABS), which covers businesses with paid employees, and the Nonemployer Statistics by Demographics (NES-D), which looks at businesses without paid employees. These datasets together provide a comprehensive view of business ownership across the country.
In 2023, there were 36.4 million U.S. employer and nonemployer businesses generating $50 trillion in receipts. Of these, women owned 14.2 million businesses with $2.8 trillion in receipts, while veterans owned 1.6 million businesses that accounted for $1 trillion in receipts.
According to the 2024 ABS report covering reference year 2023, approximately 5.9 million employer firms operated in the United States. Among them, women owned about 1.4 million firms (22.9%), and veterans owned around 261,000 firms (4.4%).
Breakdowns by race show that White-owned firms represented 80.6% of employer businesses (4.8 million) with $17 trillion in receipts; Asian-owned firms made up 11.5% (685,000) with $1.2 trillion; Hispanic-owned firms accounted for 8.4% (496,000) with $730 billion; Black or African American-owned firms comprised 3.4% (201,000) with $249 billion; American Indian or Alaska Native-owned companies made up 0.9% (55,000) with $70 billion; and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander-owned businesses represented 0.2% (9,000) with $13 billion in receipts.
The ABS is conducted jointly by the Census Bureau and sponsored by the National Science Foundation’s National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES). It collects annual data on economic and demographic characteristics of business owners including sex, ethnicity, race and veteran status as well as measuring research development activities among microbusinesses.
Data from NES-D indicate there were about 30.4 million nonemployer businesses last year bringing in a total of $1.8 trillion in receipts—women owned roughly 12.9 million nonemployer ventures (42%) earning $423 billion while veteran-owned nonemployers totaled around 1.4 million generating nearly $66 billion.
Among nonemployers: White owners accounted for about three-quarters of all such enterprises at roughly 73%, Hispanic owners made up nearly one-fifth at over 17%, Black or African American owners held just under fifteen percent share at about fourteen percent; Asian ownership was reported at nine percent; American Indian or Alaska Native at just above one percent; Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander below half a percent.
Both releases also present figures broken down by urban/rural classification as well as size measures such as employment numbers or revenue brackets—and include details regarding legal form of organization like sole proprietorships or partnerships.
NES-D compiles its statistics using administrative records along with decennial census data to link demographics to all eligible nonemployer entities—defined here as those filing federal tax returns showing annual income above one thousand dollars.
For further methodological details on how demographic attributes are assigned within NES-D datasets users can consult specific documentation provided alongside this statistical series.
