How Many Small Businesses are there in the United States?

It is no secret that the United States economy is one of the strongest in the world, with many of the most successful and profitable businesses hailing from the land of opportunity. But how did the US build and sustain such an incredibly stable and fast-growing economy?

The answer is small businesses and entrepreneurs – they are the lifeblood of the US economy!

Small businesses are not the sole reason for the US being such an economic and financial powerhouse, but you can guarantee that the small business owner has had and still has a huge part to play in it.

With almost 99.9% of all US businesses being deemed as a “small business”, you can understand why.

Small Business Statistics

If you are wondering how many small businesses there are in the United States, well, in 2022 there were 33.2 million. This is a 1.98% increase from the number of small businesses in the US in 2021.

The US has always been a major attraction for aspiring small business owners and companies from all over the world and boasts the most amount of immigrants than any other country in the world. Opportunities for entrepreneurs to start and grow a small business are bountiful.

Business ownership is diverse in the U.S., and many women, African Americans, and Hispanics own small businesses. Minority-owned businesses tend to be nonemployer businesses without any employees.

The graphic below displays the number of small businesses in the United States over the past 5 years.

How many employees is considered a small business?

US Small businesses are not just crucial for economic growth and development, but they are responsible for creating and sustaining millions of new jobs each year.

The number of new jobs created each year by small firms adds a huge boost to employment, the economy, and the lives of those working for small businesses in the US.

There are over 6.1 million small business employees in the US as of 2022 that make up 46.4% of total employment in the workforce, almost half!

This leads to the question that many people ask when it comes to small businesses; how many employees is considered a small business?

According to the SBA, in order to qualify as a small business in the US, the business must not generate more than $38.5 million in annual revenue and employ 1,500 people or less.

This is the highest maximum level, and many businesses fall into this category because that’s a lot of revenue and employees! However, small businesses are broken down into various different industries and sub-sectors.

For example, one-third of the retail industry has different sub-industries and size standards are set at no more than $7.5 million in average annual receipts.

Other retail-related industries are defined by 100 to 500 employee maximums, a lot less than the highest level of $38.5 million and 1,500 employees.

How many small businesses are in each state?

What makes the United States such a diverse place is that it is made up of 50 states that are all different shapes and sizes. They have their own laws, differing climates, and unique people and cultures. With this comes a lot of variables, especially when looking at the business climate of each state and the potential opportunities it provides to entrepreneurs and small businesses.

We have curated a table including the number of small businesses by state, showing how many small businesses there have been each year since 2016.

If you would like to know more in-depth information regarding how many small business employees each state has and what the median income is for a self-employed person in each state that has a registered business, click on the links provided for the individual state pages, where we have comprehensively broken down the small business profile for each state.

States with the Most Small Businesses in 2022

With 4.2 million small businesses, the Golden State is home to 1.1 million more small businesses than its closest rival, Texas, which comes in second in the U.S. with 3.1 million small businesses.

Top Five States with the Most Number of Small Businesses

1. California: 4.2 million
2. Texas: 3.1 million
3. Florida: 3 million
4. New York: 2.3 million
5. Illinois: 1.2 million

States with the Least Small Businesses in 2022

With just over 75,000 small businesses, the Peace Garden State has the third smallest number of small businesses in the U.S. The state with the fewest small businesses is Wyoming.

Bottom Five States with the Fewest Small Businesses in 2022

1. Wyoming: 72,081
2. Alaska: 74,587
3. North Dakota: 75,265
4. Vermont: 78,883
5. South Dakota: 90,274

Downloadable Graphic of Small Businesses in each State

We have created a graphic that shows the number of small businesses in each state in 2022. Feel free to download it for your reference. If you want to include it on your website, please link back to this page and reference it as the source.

Number of Small Businesses in the U.S. by Year

If you want to know how many small businesses there were in the U.S. in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, or 2022, we have created a table below showing you all this information.