The U.S. Census Bureau.s economic indicator surveys provide monthly and quarterly data that are timely, reliable, and offer comprehensive measures of the U.S. economy. These surveys produce a variety of statistics covering construction, housing, international trade, retail trade, wholesale trade, services and manufacturing. The survey data provide measures of economic activity that allow analysis of economic performance and inform business investment and policy decisions. Other data included, which are not considered principal economic indicators, are the Quarterly Summary of State & Local Taxes, Quarterly Survey of Public Pensions, and the Manufactured Homes Survey. For information on the reliability and use of the data, including important notes on estimation and sampling variance, seasonal adjustment, measures of sampling variability, and other information pertinent to the economic indicators, visit the individual programs' webpages - http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/briefroom/BriefRm.

Business formations data from the U.S. Census Bureau Business Formations Statistics (BFS) program gives annual county-level counts of Employer Identification Number (EIN) applications in a given year. Note that only applications are counted in this data, and the success and longevity of businesses are not tracked in this dataset.

Graph and download economic data for Projected Business Formations Within Four Quarters: Total for All NAICS in the United States (BFPBF4QTOTALSAUS) from Jul 2004 to Aug 2025 about business formations, projection, business, and USA.

American Business Formations in the US

A Look at Business Applications by State and Category

By Andy Kriebel [source]

About this dataset

This dataset contains information on business applications filed in the United States by state and category. The data includes the number of business applications from corporations, as well as the month and state in which they were filed. This data can be used to track trends in business formation across the country and to compare the relative activity of different states

How to use the dataset

How to use this dataset

This dataset can be used to analyze the number of business applications filed in the United States by state and category. The data can be used to examine trends in business formation and to compare the rates of formation across states

Research Ideas

• Tracking changes in business applications by state and category over time
• Predicting future business formation trends based on historical data
• Identifying states and categories with the highest or lowest rates of business formation

Acknowledgements

Dataset: Business Formation Statistics

The data for this dataset was collected by the US Census Bureau

Data Source

License

License: Dataset copyright by authors - You are free to: - Share - copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format for any purpose, even commercially. - Adapt - remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially. - You must: - Give appropriate credit - Provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. - ShareAlike - You must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original. - Keep intact - all notices that refer to this license, including copyright notices.

Columns

File: Business Formation Statistics.csv | Column name | Description | |:--------------------------------------------|:----------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | month | The month the business application was filed. (Date) | | category | The category of business the application is for. (String) | | state abbr | The two letter abbreviation for the state the business is located in. (String) | | Business Applications from Corporations | The number of business applications filed by corporations in the state. (Integer) |

Acknowledgements

If you use this dataset in your research, please credit Andy Kriebel.

Context

Every year thousands of individuals and entities file business formation applications in the United States. These applications are filed with the state and it is the first step in the process of forming your own business. The United States Census Bureau collects data on these filings and releases a public dataset every quarter.

The business applications measured here are applications for tax IDs from the IRS called Employee Identification Numbers (EIN). An EIN is basically a social security number (SSN) for your business that you must receive from the IRS to open a bank account for your business and complete the application process in your state. So this dataset measures the number of people from each state and county who have filed an application for an Employee Identification Number (EIN).

Content

This dataset was collected from the U.S. Census Bureau. It was part of the annual release of Business Formation Statistics on their website.

This dataset contains two csv files. One on business application data by State and another on business application data by County.

Features

County

State - Abbreviated state name County - County that each EIN application came from County Code - This is a 4 or 5 digit number that identifies each county. It is made by combining the FIP state and FIP county number. fipstate - two digit FIPS codes that identify unique geographic areas. Makes up the first two digits in the County Code. fipcty - A county FIPS code is 2-3 digits that identifies a unique geographic area. It makes up the last 2-3 digits in the County Code. 2005-2019 - Years in which business applications were filed.

State

Year - Year in which EIN application was filed (2006-2021). Week - The number of the week in the year in which the application was filed (1-52). State - Abbreviated state name from which EIN application was filed. Business Applications - This is the total number of EIN applications from that state filed this week. High-Propensity Applications - This is the number of EIN applications filed that are considered high-propensity applications. Based on the applications filed these businesses have a high propensity (or high likelihood) of transitioning into businesses with a payroll. Applications w/ Planned Wages - This column consists of the number of high-propensity business applications that indicate a planned date for paying wages. Applications from Corporations - This column consists of a subset of the high-propensity business applications that came from a corporation or service corporation.

Inspiration

Analyze the data to determine which states have the highest number of business applications filed? Highest percentage that are high-propensity businesses? What is the growth rate year over year?

Graph and download economic data for Business Applications: Total for All NAICS in the United States (BABATOTALSAUS) from Jul 2004 to Aug 2025 about business applications, business, and USA.

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Graph and download economic data for Projected Business Formations Within Four Quarters: Total for All NAICS in South Census Region (BFPBF4QTOTALNSASO) from Jul 2004 to Aug 2025 about business formations, South Census Region, projection, business, and USA.

Graph and download economic data for Projected Business Formations within 8 Quarters for Alabama (DISCONTINUED) (PBF8QSAAL) from Q3 2004 to Q4 2019 about business formations, AL, projection, business, and USA.

Graph and download economic data for Projected Business Formations Within Eight Quarters: Total for All NAICS in South Carolina (BFPBF8QTOTALNSASC) from Jul 2004 to Aug 2025 about business formations, projection, SC, business, and USA.

Graph and download economic data for Spliced Business Formations Within Four Quarters: Manufacturing in the United States (BFSBF4QNAICSMNFNSAUS) from Jul 2004 to Aug 2025 about spliced, business formations, business, manufacturing, and USA.