Small Business by State 2026
By Axis Intelligence Research
Co-author: Mia Scarlett | Last updated: October 14, 2026 | License: CC BY 4.0
Texas has the second-largest small business population in America and ranks 43rd out of 51 on how many of those businesses employ anyone. Wyoming has the 49th-largest small business count and ranks first. Count the firms and you get a census of population; count the payrolls per resident and the map redraws itself.
Quick Answer
The United States has 36,186,089 small businesses, of which 6,374,594 have employees, according to the SBA Office of Advocacy’s 2025 national profile. By raw count, California leads with 4,340,784. Per resident, Florida leads with 155.5 small businesses per 1,000 people. On the Main Street Employer Index (MSEI™) built by Axis Intelligence Research — small employer firms per resident, national aggregate = 100 — Wyoming leads at 170.4 and West Virginia trails at 71.0.
Key Findings
- According to Axis Intelligence Research, Wyoming ranks first on the Main Street Employer Index at 170.4, with 33.0 small employer firms per 1,000 residents against a national aggregate of 19.34 (SBA 2025 profiles; Census Vintage 2025 population).
- Texas holds 3,517,343 small businesses, second only to California, but ranks 43rd on the MSEI at 84.8, because only 14.0% of its small businesses have a payroll, Axis Intelligence Research finds.
- In the first 39 weeks of 2026, U.S. business applications rose 15.3% while applications with planned wages fell 15.3%, according to Axis Intelligence Research calculations from U.S. Census Bureau Business Formation Statistics.
- Planned-wage applications fell in 50 of 51 jurisdictions over that window; Oklahoma, the lone riser at +15.2%, owes the gain to a single February spike, Axis Intelligence Research finds.
- Axis Intelligence Research’s Planned-Wage Share (PWS™) puts Wyoming last at 4.4% of 2025 business applications and North Dakota first at 14.0%, against a national 8.8% (Census BFS, calendar 2025).
Which States Have the Most Small Businesses?
California, Texas, Florida, New York and Georgia hold the five largest small business populations in the country, per the SBA Office of Advocacy’s 2025 state profiles, which draw on Census Nonemployer Statistics and Statistics of U.S. Businesses for reference year 2022.
Top 5 states by number of small businesses, 2022
| Rank | State | Small businesses | With employees | Employer share | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | California | 4,340,784 | 837,834 | 19.3% | SBA California profile 2025 |
| 2 | Texas | 3,517,343 | 493,818 | 14.0% | SBA Texas profile 2025 |
| 3 | Florida | 3,485,976 | 517,775 | 14.9% | SBA Florida profile 2025 |
| 4 | New York | 2,378,996 | 455,479 | 19.1% | SBA New York profile 2025 |
| 5 | Georgia | 1,374,972 | 199,431 | 14.5% | SBA Georgia profile 2025 |
Employer share is the Axis Intelligence Research calculation of firms with 1–499 employees divided by all small businesses.
That list is a population ranking wearing a business costume. The five largest states by residents are the five largest by small business count, and Florida has more employer firms than Texas despite roughly 7.7 million fewer residents in the 2022 population estimates. The full 51-row raw table sits further down this page; the normalized ranking is where the information is.
Mia Scarlett, Business: Every “states with the most small businesses” list I’ve read is reporting the same thing the Census population table reports, one step removed. The number that matters to a lender, a landlord or a payroll provider is not how many EINs exist but how many of them sign a W-2. In Texas, 3,023,525 of the state’s small businesses have no employees at all. That isn’t weakness — it’s a gig-and-contractor economy showing up in the denominator. But it means “Texas is a small business state” and “Texas is a small employer state” are two different claims, and only the first one survives the data.
Small Businesses per Capita by State: The Main Street Employer Index (MSEI™)
The Main Street Employer Index (MSEI™) is a per-capita measure created by Axis Intelligence Research. It counts only small businesses that carry a payroll — firms with 1 to 499 employees — per 1,000 residents, and indexes each state against the national aggregate. A reading of 100 is the national level; 170 means 70% more small employers per resident than the country as a whole.
How the MSEI is calculated
MSEI = (state small employer firms ÷ state population × 1,000) ÷ 19.34 × 100
- Numerator inputs: firms with 1–19 and 20–499 employees from each state’s SBA 2025 profile (Census SUSB, reference year 2022).
- Population: July 1, 2022 resident population from the Census Bureau’s Vintage 2025 state estimates, so firm counts and population share a reference year.
- Baseline: 19.34 = the sum of all 51 state employer-firm counts (6,460,914) per 1,000 U.S. residents in 2022. The baseline uses the state sum rather than the national 6,374,594 so that every state is measured on the same counting basis (see Methodology).
Worked example, Wyoming: 19,173 small employer firms ÷ 581,742 residents × 1,000 = 33.0 per 1,000; 33.0 ÷ 19.34 × 100 = 170.4.
Small business ranking by state, 2026 (MSEI™, all 50 states + DC)
| MSEI rank | State | MSEI™ | Small employer firms per 1,000 residents | Small businesses per 1,000 residents | Raw count rank | PWS™ (2025) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wyoming | 170.4 | 33.0 | 140.8 | 49 | 4.4% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 2 | Montana | 161.7 | 31.3 | 125.7 | 42 | 7.8% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 3 | Vermont | 135.9 | 26.3 | 126.5 | 48 | 11.3% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 4 | District of Columbia | 134.4 | 26.0 | 122.6 | 47 | 10.0% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 5 | Colorado | 129.7 | 25.1 | 124.9 | 15 | 7.7% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 6 | South Dakota | 129.3 | 25.0 | 106.4 | 46 | 12.6% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 7 | Maine | 127.4 | 24.6 | 115.1 | 39 | 13.8% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 8 | North Dakota | 126.6 | 24.5 | 100.3 | 50 | 14.0% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 9 | Idaho | 124.4 | 24.1 | 106.9 | 36 | 11.2% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 10 | Alaska | 122.2 | 23.6 | 106.1 | 51 | 12.1% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 11 | New York | 119.4 | 23.1 | 120.7 | 4 | 7.8% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 12 | Florida | 119.4 | 23.1 | 155.5 | 3 | 6.5% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 13 | Oregon | 118.1 | 22.8 | 98.4 | 26 | 10.9% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 14 | Utah | 116.9 | 22.6 | 109.5 | 30 | 8.5% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 15 | Delaware | 115.6 | 22.4 | 109.1 | 45 | 7.7% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 16 | Nebraska | 113.7 | 22.0 | 98.1 | 37 | 11.6% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 17 | New Hampshire | 112.6 | 21.8 | 104.0 | 40 | 10.7% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 18 | Rhode Island | 112.0 | 21.7 | 105.8 | 44 | 12.8% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 19 | California | 110.7 | 21.4 | 110.9 | 1 | 10.8% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 20 | New Jersey | 108.3 | 21.0 | 113.1 | 10 | 8.5% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 21 | Washington | 107.6 | 20.8 | 89.3 | 18 | 8.8% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 22 | Minnesota | 106.6 | 20.6 | 97.8 | 21 | 10.5% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 23 | Massachusetts | 105.9 | 20.5 | 107.6 | 13 | 11.3% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 24 | Illinois | 103.8 | 20.1 | 107.4 | 6 | 8.7% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 25 | Iowa | 99.8 | 19.3 | 90.6 | 34 | 10.0% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 26 | Kansas | 99.2 | 19.2 | 93.1 | 35 | 10.8% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 27 | Connecticut | 97.7 | 18.9 | 105.3 | 29 | 8.9% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 28 | Nevada | 96.1 | 18.6 | 111.3 | 31 | 9.4% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 29 | Missouri | 96.0 | 18.6 | 95.5 | 20 | 9.7% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 30 | Georgia | 94.3 | 18.2 | 125.8 | 5 | 8.4% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 31 | Wisconsin | 94.2 | 18.2 | 84.3 | 24 | 9.7% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 32 | Virginia | 94.0 | 18.2 | 101.4 | 12 | 9.1% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 33 | North Carolina | 93.2 | 18.0 | 103.5 | 8 | 9.1% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 34 | Oklahoma | 93.1 | 18.0 | 98.3 | 27 | 9.8% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 35 | Maryland | 92.3 | 17.9 | 112.7 | 17 | 9.0% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 36 | Pennsylvania | 91.7 | 17.7 | 90.0 | 7 | 8.8% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 37 | Louisiana | 91.0 | 17.6 | 111.1 | 23 | 7.5% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 38 | Michigan | 89.4 | 17.3 | 97.9 | 11 | 8.2% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 39 | Hawaii | 88.9 | 17.2 | 100.4 | 41 | 9.1% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 40 | South Carolina | 88.3 | 17.1 | 100.3 | 22 | 8.2% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 41 | Arkansas | 86.7 | 16.8 | 96.1 | 33 | 9.9% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 42 | Arizona | 85.1 | 16.5 | 95.9 | 16 | 8.2% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 43 | Texas | 84.8 | 16.4 | 116.8 | 2 | 9.7% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 44 | Indiana | 83.7 | 16.2 | 86.5 | 19 | 10.2% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 45 | New Mexico | 82.1 | 15.9 | 81.5 | 38 | 7.3% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 46 | Ohio | 80.3 | 15.5 | 91.9 | 9 | 8.0% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 47 | Alabama | 76.8 | 14.8 | 91.7 | 25 | 9.2% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 48 | Mississippi | 76.6 | 14.8 | 100.2 | 32 | 9.1% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 49 | Tennessee | 76.0 | 14.7 | 104.9 | 14 | 9.9% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 50 | Kentucky | 75.2 | 14.6 | 87.1 | 28 | 7.7% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
| 51 | West Virginia | 71.0 | 13.7 | 66.5 | 43 | 11.6% | SBA 2025 profiles; Census BFS, PEP V2025; Axis calc. |
Source: SBA Office of Advocacy 2025 state profiles; U.S. Census Bureau Vintage 2025 population estimates; Axis Intelligence Research calculation.
The top of the ranking is mountain and northern-tier states — Wyoming, Montana, Vermont, South Dakota, Maine, North Dakota — where small employers carry the private economy. The bottom is a southern and Appalachian band: West Virginia (71.0), Kentucky (75.2), Tennessee (76.0), Mississippi (76.6). Florida, first in small businesses per resident at 155.5, drops to 12th once only payroll firms count. Georgia falls from 4th per resident to 30th. California lands at 19th with an MSEI of 110.7.
The District of Columbia (134.4) is a city-jurisdiction outlier: its employer firms serve a commuting workforce that lives in Maryland and Virginia, so a per-resident denominator flatters it. It stays in the ranking because removing it would hide that effect rather than explain it.
Mia Scarlett: Run the index across the bottom ten and the pattern isn’t regional poverty — Texas and Tennessee both grew their populations faster than the nation between 2022 and 2025. It’s composition. Both states sit at a 14.0% employer share, the lowest in the dataset, which means their small business sector is overwhelmingly sole proprietors and single-member LLCs. A landlord with one rental, a rideshare driver, a 1099 consultant. For a bank building a small-business loan book, those firms have no payroll to underwrite. The MSEI is a map of where the commercial borrower actually lives.
Business Applications by State in 2026: Formation Up, Hiring Intent Down
The Census Bureau’s Business Formation Statistics count applications for an Employer Identification Number, and they split out the subset where the applicant indicated plans to pay wages. That split is where 2026 gets interesting.
Comparing the first 39 BFS weeks of each year — January 4 to October 3, 2026 against December 29, 2024 to September 27, 2025, equal-length windows under the BFS week calendar — Axis Intelligence Research finds:
U.S. business formation, first 39 weeks of 2026 vs 2025 (not seasonally adjusted)
| Series | 2025 (39 weeks) | 2026 (39 weeks) | Change | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total business applications | 4,273,086 | 4,927,840 | +15.3% | Census BFS |
| High-propensity applications | 1,323,566 | 1,386,358 | +4.7% | Census BFS |
| Applications from corporations | 406,332 | 392,447 | −3.4% | Census BFS |
| Applications with planned wages | 397,614 | 336,905 | −15.3% | Census BFS |
| Projected employer formations within 4 quarters | 232,224 | 270,089 | +16.3% | Census BFS (projection) |
Total applications and planned-wage applications moved by the same magnitude in opposite directions. The slide is not new: planned-wage applications totaled 613,708 in BFS calendar 2023, 550,423 in 2024 and 501,223 in 2025 — and 2025 contained 53 BFS weeks to 2024’s 52, so the true decline is slightly steeper than the raw count shows. Census’s own projection of employer formations rose 16.3% over the same 39 weeks; the BFS files do not reconcile the two series, and Axis Intelligence Research does not attribute a cause.
Planned-Wage Share (PWS™): which states’ new businesses plan to hire?
The Planned-Wage Share (PWS™), an Axis Intelligence Research metric, is the share of a state’s business applications that indicate planned wages:
PWS = applications with planned wages ÷ total business applications × 100 (BFS calendar 2025, not seasonally adjusted)
Nationally, PWS was 8.8% in 2025, down from 11.2% in 2023. By state it runs from 14.0% in North Dakota, 13.8% in Maine and 12.8% in Rhode Island down to 6.5% in Florida and 4.4% in Wyoming. The full state values sit in the MSEI table above and in the CSV.
PWS is the corrective to “most entrepreneurial state” rankings built on applications per capita. Wyoming recorded 79,023 applications in 2025 — 134.2 per 1,000 residents, more than double Delaware’s 56.7 and nearly five times Florida’s 27.6. Applications per resident is the metric those rankings reward. PWS shows what most of that volume is: entities that, at the moment of filing, did not expect to pay anyone.
Fastest-rising and falling states, business applications 2026
| State | Applications, Jan–Sep 2025 | Applications, Jan–Sep 2026 | Change | Planned-wage applications, change | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska | 7,664 | 11,351 | +48.1% | -6.0% | Census BFS, 39 weeks each, NSA |
| Oklahoma | 42,887 | 58,049 | +35.4% | +15.2% | Census BFS, 39 weeks each, NSA |
| Kentucky | 46,080 | 61,730 | +34.0% | -13.5% | Census BFS, 39 weeks each, NSA |
| Missouri | 74,042 | 96,509 | +30.3% | -13.6% | Census BFS, 39 weeks each, NSA |
| Mississippi | 38,872 | 50,522 | +30.0% | -23.5% | Census BFS, 39 weeks each, NSA |
| Utah | 53,312 | 69,052 | +29.5% | -8.5% | Census BFS, 39 weeks each, NSA |
| New Hampshire | 12,734 | 16,348 | +28.4% | -8.3% | Census BFS, 39 weeks each, NSA |
| Arkansas | 29,463 | 37,035 | +25.7% | -16.3% | Census BFS, 39 weeks each, NSA |
| West Virginia | 12,537 | 15,618 | +24.6% | -11.2% | Census BFS, 39 weeks each, NSA |
| Colorado | 110,009 | 136,993 | +24.5% | -15.5% | Census BFS, 39 weeks each, NSA |
| District of Columbia | 11,418 | 12,387 | +8.5% | -26.6% | Census BFS, 39 weeks each, NSA |
| Oregon | 49,100 | 52,044 | +6.0% | -12.3% | Census BFS, 39 weeks each, NSA |
| Delaware | 45,406 | 47,277 | +4.1% | -20.9% | Census BFS, 39 weeks each, NSA |
| Hawaii | 15,127 | 14,053 | -7.1% | -26.7% | Census BFS, 39 weeks each, NSA |
| Washington | 114,987 | 93,320 | -18.8% | -13.1% | Census BFS, 39 weeks each, NSA |
Business applications rose in 49 of 51 jurisdictions; only Washington and Hawaii declined.
Mia Scarlett: If I were reading this as a quarterly filing, the headline would be revenue up 15% and the footnote would be that the high-margin segment shrank 15%. Applications are the top line. Planned-wage applications are the segment that eventually shows up in payroll tax receipts, workers’ comp premiums and commercial lending demand. Two consecutive years of decline in that segment, while the top line hits records, is the kind of divergence that tells you the mix changed — not that entrepreneurship boomed.
States Where the Story Is
Wyoming — first on employers, last on hiring intent. Wyoming’s 19,173 small employer firms give it 33.0 per 1,000 residents and an MSEI of 170.4, the highest in the country, and its small businesses employ 65.2% of the state’s employees (SBA, reference year 2022). Both readings are real. So is the other one: 4.4% of its 2025 applications planned wages, the lowest PWS of any state, on an application volume of 134.2 per 1,000 residents. Wyoming runs two business economies at once — a dense Main Street of employer firms, and a filing economy that registers far more entities than it staffs.
Texas — the scale state that ranks 43rd. Texas generated 148,641 net new small-business jobs between March 2023 and March 2024, the most of any state per the SBA Texas profile. It also has 16.4 small employer firms per 1,000 residents and an MSEI of 84.8. Both are true: net job creation measures how much existing employers grew, while the MSEI measures how many employers exist per resident — and the vast majority of Texas small businesses, 3,023,525 nonemployers, hire no one.
Florida — most small businesses per person, lowest employment share. At 155.5 small businesses per 1,000 residents, Florida tops the per-capita count, and its 2025 application rate of 27.6 per 1,000 ranks third. But small businesses account for 39.6% of Florida’s private employment, the lowest share among the 50 states and DC, and its PWS of 6.5% is second-lowest. Florida is where people form businesses; it is less clearly where small businesses employ people.
Washington — the only large decline, explained by 2025. Washington applications fell 18.8% in the first 39 weeks of 2026, from 114,987 to 93,320. The weekly pace shows why. Washington averaged 2,161 applications a week in January–April 2024, then 3,744 a week in January–April 2025, then 2,546 in January–April 2026. From May through September the pace was 2,266 a week in 2025 and 2,274 in 2026 — essentially flat. The 2026 “drop” is a comparison against an early-2025 surge.
Oklahoma — the only state where planned-wage applications rose. Oklahoma’s applications jumped 35.4% and its planned-wage applications rose 15.2%, making it the single exception to the national decline. Nearly all of it is one month: February 2026 brought 10,034 applications and 1,653 with planned wages, against 4,284 and 517 in February 2025. Strip February out of both years and Oklahoma’s planned-wage applications fall 11.3%, in line with the country.
Alaska — fastest application growth from the smallest base. Alaska has the fewest small businesses of any state, 77,814, yet its applications grew 48.1% in 2026, from 7,664 to 11,351, the largest increase nationwide. Its MSEI of 122.2 places it 10th, and its PWS of 12.1% is among the highest.
North Dakota and Maine — where new filers plan to hire. North Dakota’s PWS of 14.0% and Maine’s 13.8% top the country: roughly one in seven new applications in each state indicated planned wages. Both also sit in the MSEI top ten. Low application volume, high payroll intent — the inverse of the Wyoming pattern.
Oregon and Hawaii — the net-jobs outliers. Oregon is the only state where small businesses posted a net job loss between March 2023 and March 2024, at −548, per SBA data; Hawaii’s small businesses added a net 129 jobs. Hawaii is also one of two states where 2026 applications declined (−7.1%), and its planned-wage applications fell 26.7%, the steepest drop nationwide.
West Virginia and Kentucky — last on the index. West Virginia has the fewest small businesses per resident (66.5 per 1,000) and the lowest MSEI (71.0). Kentucky ranks 50th at 75.2 even as its 2026 applications rose 34.0%, the third-fastest growth in the country — growth that, at a 7.7% PWS, mostly arrives without payroll plans.
How Many Small Businesses Are in Each State? Full Raw Table
The raw counts below are the figures as published by the SBA Office of Advocacy, with 2025 business applications from Census BFS. Sorted by number of small businesses.
| State | Small businesses | Without employees | With employees (1–499) | Small business share of employment | Net new small-business jobs (Mar 2023–Mar 2024) | Business applications, 2025 | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| California | 4,340,784 | 3,502,950 | 837,834 | 47.4% | 86,885 | 553,931 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Texas | 3,517,343 | 3,023,525 | 493,818 | 44.4% | 148,641 | 544,146 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Florida | 3,485,976 | 2,968,201 | 517,775 | 39.6% | 139,887 | 647,734 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| New York | 2,378,996 | 1,923,517 | 455,479 | 46.6% | 54,510 | 301,047 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Georgia | 1,374,972 | 1,175,541 | 199,431 | 42.5% | 45,950 | 254,582 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Illinois | 1,353,957 | 1,100,655 | 253,302 | 43.7% | 14,131 | 189,879 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Pennsylvania | 1,169,008 | 938,764 | 230,244 | 45.2% | 46,429 | 161,275 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| North Carolina | 1,107,537 | 914,586 | 192,951 | 44.2% | 52,820 | 182,653 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Ohio | 1,081,292 | 898,451 | 182,841 | 43.8% | 31,354 | 168,207 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| New Jersey | 1,051,630 | 856,771 | 194,859 | 48.8% | 38,432 | 161,138 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Michigan | 983,079 | 809,426 | 173,653 | 47.7% | 27,947 | 152,060 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Virginia | 880,366 | 722,562 | 157,804 | 45.9% | 34,814 | 138,762 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Massachusetts | 756,096 | 612,132 | 143,964 | 44.7% | 4,824 | 79,139 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Tennessee | 741,196 | 637,340 | 103,856 | 41.5% | 40,433 | 103,220 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Colorado | 730,887 | 583,986 | 146,901 | 48.6% | 6,384 | 143,807 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Arizona | 706,640 | 585,251 | 121,389 | 42.6% | 80,016 | 135,679 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Maryland | 696,710 | 586,327 | 110,383 | 47.9% | 16,613 | 101,253 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Washington | 695,695 | 533,681 | 162,014 | 48.7% | 27,671 | 142,196 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Indiana | 591,671 | 480,921 | 110,750 | 43.2% | 23,008 | 89,768 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Missouri | 590,131 | 475,437 | 114,694 | 44.4% | 19,137 | 101,393 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Minnesota | 560,428 | 442,345 | 118,083 | 45.8% | 617 | 73,825 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| South Carolina | 530,402 | 440,037 | 90,365 | 42.9% | 25,358 | 94,104 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Louisiana | 511,235 | 430,224 | 81,011 | 54.1% | 5,470 | 75,620 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Wisconsin | 497,370 | 389,776 | 107,594 | 48.0% | 15,910 | 71,475 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Alabama | 465,610 | 390,228 | 75,382 | 46.0% | 4,814 | 70,466 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Oregon | 417,747 | 320,778 | 96,969 | 53.4% | -548 | 62,652 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Oklahoma | 395,520 | 323,064 | 72,456 | 50.8% | 16,295 | 56,855 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Kentucky | 393,860 | 328,057 | 65,803 | 42.6% | 22,043 | 64,042 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Connecticut | 381,129 | 312,711 | 68,418 | 48.1% | 10,840 | 49,834 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Utah | 371,569 | 294,809 | 76,760 | 45.4% | 21,320 | 72,787 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Nevada | 353,621 | 294,529 | 59,092 | 45.0% | 23,302 | 64,781 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Mississippi | 294,768 | 251,172 | 43,596 | 47.0% | 5,426 | 52,467 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Arkansas | 292,728 | 241,619 | 51,109 | 46.1% | 14,245 | 39,512 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Iowa | 289,962 | 228,133 | 61,829 | 46.0% | 12,573 | 35,038 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Kansas | 273,419 | 217,018 | 56,401 | 48.9% | 10,601 | 37,534 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Idaho | 207,670 | 160,914 | 46,756 | 56.0% | 17,233 | 33,267 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Nebraska | 193,495 | 150,120 | 43,375 | 47.5% | 12,739 | 22,876 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| New Mexico | 172,113 | 138,557 | 33,556 | 53.3% | 4,651 | 40,758 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Maine | 160,215 | 125,923 | 34,292 | 54.5% | 7,026 | 14,186 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| New Hampshire | 145,314 | 114,903 | 30,411 | 50.3% | 6,023 | 17,046 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Hawaii | 144,375 | 119,647 | 24,728 | 49.6% | 129 | 19,558 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Montana | 141,011 | 105,934 | 35,077 | 66.3% | 3,827 | 29,887 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| West Virginia | 118,045 | 93,669 | 24,376 | 47.4% | 5,885 | 16,387 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Rhode Island | 116,149 | 92,358 | 23,791 | 51.1% | 4,102 | 11,800 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Delaware | 111,346 | 88,530 | 22,816 | 50.6% | 5,323 | 60,132 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| South Dakota | 96,770 | 74,028 | 22,742 | 58.0% | 6,662 | 12,092 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| District of Columbia | 82,666 | 65,130 | 17,536 | 49.1% | 2,678 | 14,945 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Vermont | 81,949 | 64,930 | 17,019 | 62.1% | 1,533 | 7,575 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Wyoming | 81,924 | 62,751 | 19,173 | 65.2% | 1,494 | 79,023 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| North Dakota | 78,219 | 59,106 | 19,113 | 57.6% | 6,358 | 8,912 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
| Alaska | 77,814 | 60,471 | 17,343 | 54.2% | 4,814 | 10,531 | SBA Office of Advocacy 2025; Census BFS |
Which states depend most on small business employment?
Montana leads, with 66.3% of employees working for small businesses, followed by Wyoming at 65.2% and Vermont at 62.1%. Florida is lowest at 39.6%, then Tennessee at 41.5% and Georgia at 42.5% (SBA 2025 profiles, reference year 2022). Nationally the share is 45.9%.
Mia Scarlett: The employment-share column and the MSEI point the same direction at the top of the table, which is the reassuring part — two different measures, two different Census programs, one answer. Where they diverge is more useful. Florida has above-average employer density but the lowest employment share, which means a larger slice of Florida’s workforce sits in firms with 500 or more employees than anywhere else in the country. Lots of small employers, but the payroll weight sits with the big ones.
Methodology
Sources. Every figure on this page comes from four primary federal sources retrieved on October 14, 2026:
- U.S. Small Business Administration, Office of Advocacy — State small business statistics 2025 (dataset updated January 30, 2026) and the 51 individual 2025 state profiles, which republish Census Nonemployer Statistics 2022, Statistics of U.S. Businesses 2022, and BLS Business Employment Dynamics (March 2023 to March 2024). Definitions follow the SBA’s 2025 technical notes: a small business is a firm with fewer than 500 employees.
- U.S. Census Bureau — Business Formation Statistics time series (bfs_monthly.csv), state-level, not seasonally adjusted, data through September 2026.
- U.S. Census Bureau — BFS month-to-week calendar table, used to align comparison windows.
- U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division — Annual Estimates of the Resident Population, Vintage 2025 (NST-EST2025-POP), released January 2026.
Verification. For each of the 51 jurisdictions, the employer and nonemployer counts from the state profile were checked to sum exactly to the published state total; all 51 matched. The 51 state nonemployer counts sum to 29,811,495, exactly the national figure. State BFS application totals sum exactly to the national total (5,671,836 in 2025), and the state population figures sum exactly to the U.S. total. All Axis-calculated figures were computed twice, in floating point and in exact rational arithmetic, before rounding.
Why the states sum to more than the nation. The 51 state small business counts total 36,272,409 — 86,320 more than the national 36,186,089. The entire difference sits in employer firms (6,460,914 summed across states vs 6,374,594 nationally); nonemployer counts reconcile exactly. This pattern is consistent with a small employer operating in several states appearing in each of those states’ counts. The MSEI baseline (19.34 per 1,000) is therefore built on the state sum, so every state is measured on the same basis.
Formulas.
- MSEI™ (Main Street Employer Index) = (state small employer firms ÷ July 1, 2022 population × 1,000) ÷ 19.34 × 100.
- PWS™ (Planned-Wage Share) = BFS applications with planned wages ÷ total BFS applications × 100, BFS calendar 2025.
- 39-week change = (Jan–Sep 2026 − Jan–Sep 2025) ÷ Jan–Sep 2025 × 100; both windows cover 39 BFS weeks.
- Per-capita rates use the population of the matching reference year: 2022 for business counts, 2025 for 2025 applications.
Scope. Business counts and employment shares reflect reference year 2022, the most recent vintage in the SBA’s 2025 profiles; the 2025 edition remains the SBA’s latest state-profile release as of October 14, 2026, and its February 2026 congressional district profiles also draw on SUSB 2022. BFS calendar 2025 contains 53 weeks against 52 in 2024, so annual comparisons across those two years carry one extra week; year-over-year comparisons on this page use equal 39-week windows instead. Planned-wage status is the applicant’s indication at filing, not a later payroll record. Projected employer formations are Census Bureau econometric projections.
About This Dataset
Title: Small Business Statistics by State 2026 — counts, employer density (MSEI™), and business formation (PWS™)
Creator and publisher: Axis Intelligence Research
Coverage: 50 states, District of Columbia and United States; business counts 2022; business applications 2023 through September 2026; population 2022 and 2025
Format: CSV, UTF-8, long format with value_raw and value_normalized columns and full provenance on every row
License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
File: small-business-statistics-by-state.csv
Citation line: Axis Intelligence Research, Small Business Statistics by State 2026, 2026.
Cite This Research
APA: Axis Intelligence Research, & Scarlett, M. (2026, October 14). Small business statistics by state 2026: Who has the most small businesses — and who actually hires. Axis Intelligence. https://axis-intelligence.com/small-business-statistics-by-state/
MLA: Axis Intelligence Research, and Mia Scarlett. “Small Business Statistics by State 2026: Who Has the Most Small Businesses — and Who Actually Hires.” Axis Intelligence, 14 Oct. 2026, axis-intelligence.com/small-business-statistics-by-state/.
Chicago: Axis Intelligence Research and Mia Scarlett. “Small Business Statistics by State 2026: Who Has the Most Small Businesses — and Who Actually Hires.” Axis Intelligence, October 14, 2026. https://axis-intelligence.com/small-business-statistics-by-state/.
Small Business by State: Questions Owners, Lenders and Reporters Ask
Which state has the most small businesses per capita?
Florida has the most small businesses per resident, at 155.5 per 1,000 people (SBA 2025 profiles; Census 2022 population). Counting only small businesses with employees, Wyoming leads at 33.0 per 1,000 residents, an MSEI™ of 170.4, according to Axis Intelligence Research.
Why does Wyoming top “most entrepreneurial state” rankings?
Wyoming recorded 134.2 business applications per 1,000 residents in 2025, the highest rate in the country, per Census BFS. But only 4.4% of those applications indicated planned wages — the lowest Planned-Wage Share of any state, Axis Intelligence Research finds — so application volume overstates hiring formation.
Are new businesses in 2026 planning to hire fewer workers?
Yes. In the first 39 weeks of 2026, U.S. applications with planned wages fell 15.3% to 336,905 while total applications rose 15.3%, Axis Intelligence Research calculates from Census BFS. Planned-wage applications declined in 50 of 51 jurisdictions.
Which states rely most on small businesses for jobs?
Montana (66.3%), Wyoming (65.2%) and Vermont (62.1%) have the highest share of employees working at small businesses, per the SBA Office of Advocacy (reference year 2022). Florida has the lowest at 39.6%.
Why don’t state small business counts add up to 36.2 million?
The 51 state counts sum to 36,272,409, which is 86,320 above the national 36,186,089. Axis Intelligence Research found the entire gap is in employer firms; nonemployer counts reconcile exactly, consistent with multi-state employers appearing in more than one state’s count.
Which state’s business applications fell in 2026?
Washington’s applications fell 18.8% in the first 39 weeks of 2026, and Hawaii’s fell 7.1%; all other states rose. Washington’s decline reflects an unusually high January–April 2025 pace of 3,744 applications a week, Axis Intelligence Research finds.
Is a business application the same as a new business?
No. A BFS business application is a request for an Employer Identification Number. The Census Bureau separately projects how many become employer businesses: 270,089 within four quarters for applications filed in the first 39 weeks of 2026, against 4,927,840 applications.
Where did small businesses lose jobs?
Oregon was the only state where small businesses recorded a net job loss between March 2023 and March 2024, at −548, according to the SBA Office of Advocacy. Hawaii’s small businesses added a net 129 jobs over the same period.
Related Axis Intelligence Research: the national picture of formation, survival and payroll lives in our small business statistics hub; credit conditions are in small business loan statistics; coverage costs in small business insurance statistics, workers’ compensation statistics and small business health insurance by state; the nonemployer side of the economy in side hustle statistics; and failure data in corporate bankruptcy statistics.