Breakdown of US ‘Businesses’

Here's a quick spreadsheet outlining a breakdown of 'businesses' in the U.S. market.

The following statistic has misled many founders, so please review the data closely.

While there are approximately 33 million businesses in the U.S. market, only 20% of that number are employers; the other 80% are non-employers (e.g., real estate agents, independent (single) contractors, etc.).

The total count of businesses broken down by non-employers AND employers, was pulled directly from the Census Quick Fact Sheet (listed below).

I then found a few datasets across 2017-2021 to further break down employers by employee count (source: Certified Employee-Owned - Census Data).

Please use this data only as a mental model.

Sources:

U.S. Census Quick Facts: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/SBO001217

U.S. Census Statistics of U.S. Businesses: https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/susb.html

Ask Wonder (Revenue Breakdown): https://askwonder.com/research/companies-united-states-fall-following-revenue-categories-less-than-26m-26m-100m-1thcjkkqw

Employer Breakdown: https://www.certifiedeo.com/blog-posts/how-many-businesses-are-there-in-america-and-what-does-it-mean-for-employee-ownership