The U.S. Census Bureau has released new data detailing the demographic characteristics of business owners in the United States, including information on sex, race, ethnicity, and veteran status. For the first time, this release provides estimates of employer firms by owner characteristics, industry sector, and congressional district.
The data are sourced from two main surveys: the Annual Business Survey (ABS), which covers businesses with paid employees, and the Nonemployer Statistics by Demographics (NES-D), which focuses on businesses without paid employees. Together, these sources offer a comprehensive view of business ownership across the country.
According to figures for 2023, there were 36.4 million employer and nonemployer businesses in the United States, generating $50 trillion in receipts. Of these businesses, women owned 14.2 million with $2.8 trillion in receipts, while veterans owned 1.6 million with $1 trillion in receipts.
The 2024 ABS reported that there were about 5.9 million employer firms in 2023. Of these, women owned approximately 1.4 million (22.9%), and veterans owned around 261,000 (4.4%).
Demographic breakdowns showed that White-owned firms made up 80.6% (4.8 million) of employer businesses with $17 trillion in receipts; Asian-owned firms accounted for 11.5% (685,000) with $1.2 trillion; Hispanic-owned firms represented 8.4% (496,000) with $730.3 billion; Black or African American-owned firms comprised 3.4% (201,000) with $249 billion; American Indian or Alaska Native-owned firms made up 0.9% (55,000) with $70.8 billion; and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander-owned firms accounted for 0.2% (9,000) with $13.1 billion.
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 measures research and development among microbusinesses as well as innovation and technology activities.
For nonemployer businesses—those without paid employees—the NES-D found there were about 30.4 million such entities in 2023 with combined receipts of $1.8 trillion. Women owned roughly 12.9 million nonemployer businesses (42.3%) generating $423 billion in receipts; veteran-owned nonemployers numbered about 1.4 million (4.5%) with $65 billion in receipts.
Other notable findings from the NES-D include: White-owned nonemployer businesses comprised 73.6% (22.4 million) of the total with $1.3 trillion in receipts; Hispanic-owned accounted for 17.5% (5.3 million) with $244 billion; Black or African American-owned made up 14.4% (4.4 million) with $128 billion; Asian-owned represented 9% (2 .8 million) with $163 billion; American Indian or Alaska Native-owned comprised about 1 .2% (378 ,000 )with nearly $15 .5 billion ;and Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander -owned accounted for just under half a percent(102 ,000 )with$4 .4billion .
Both releases provide further breakdowns by urban/rural classification , receipt size , legal form of organization ,and years in business . The NES-D links administrative records to census data to assign demographic characteristics to nonemployer businesses filing federal income tax returns.
“No news release is associated with this product,” according to the Census Bureau announcement.
