Where our numbers come from
The source series
Every statistic on this site comes from the U.S. Census Bureau. We do not survey, sample, or estimate; we retrieve, aggregate, and label. Two questions need two different datasets, and we keep them clearly apart.
How many businesses are forming, and is that rising or falling? That comes from Business Formation Statistics (BFS), the monthly count of EIN applications filed with the IRS. It is our freshest series, published within weeks of the period it covers.
How many of a given business already operate in a given state? That comes from County Business Patterns (businesses with paid employees) and Nonemployer Statistics (businesses with none, the sole operators who make up most of many service industries). Both are annual and both are counted at the same industry code, so the two figures on a guide's data plate always describe the same universe and can be read together.
What we compute
Twelve-month totals are sums of the latest twelve monthly observations, not seasonally adjusted. Year-over-year change compares that sum to the preceding twelve months. Monthly national figures are seasonally adjusted and say so. Every derived figure carries the retrieval date of its underlying series, shown as the brass stamp on each data plate.
Three limitations shape what you see on every page.
BFS has no state-by-industry series. It publishes state totals for all industries combined, and industry sectors for the nation as a whole, never the two crossed. So our monthly trend charts are always state totals labeled “all industries,” and our BFS sector tables are always labeled U.S. scope. We do not estimate, interpolate, or apportion a state × industry figure from them, and we would rather show you a narrower true number than a wider invented one.
The industry counts lag. County Business Patterns and Nonemployer Statistics are annual, and Census publishes them roughly two to three years after the year they describe. We always use the most recent year Census has released, and every figure is stamped with the year it belongs to. They tell you the shape of a market, not last month's news. The BFS trend is what covers last month.
Rates per resident use a second survey. BFS publishes counts and never rates. The per-1,000-residents column on applications by state divides a BFS count by American Community Survey 1-year population, a separate Census survey with its own reference period, and both are named on the page. Read that column as filing volume against population. States that sell registration to non-residents record filings far above what their own economies produce.
Corrections
The Census Bureau revises BFS monthly. Our pages rebuild on each release; a figure that changes gets a new retrieval stamp, and material corrections are noted on the affected page. To report an error, write to hey@businessformation.us and we will review it against the source series.
Affiliate disclosure
Our filing guides recommend Northwest Registered Agent and link to them with an affiliate code. If you sign up through those links we may earn a commission; the price you pay is the same either way. Affiliate revenue funds the site and has no influence on the statistics we publish. The data pipeline is Census-only and runs unchanged whether or not a guide converts.