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Data · Business applications

New business applications, county by county

How many new businesses are applying for an Employer Identification Number in each county, year by year since the series began, and how fast that count is moving. We read the Census Bureau's Business Formation Statistics county file cell for cell, add counties up to states and the nation, and check every state and year against the Bureau's own monthly state series.

Checked October 29, 2026 · CC BY 4.0 · Not legal advice

What is in this dataset?

Business applications (requests for a new Employer Identification Number) in every U.S. county from 2005 to 2025, with each county's latest count, the change over a year and since 2019, and the sums for each state and the nation, from the Census Bureau's Business Formation Statistics annual county file. The Census Bureau applied differentially private noise to the June 2026 release, so every record is flagged noise; county sums are checked against the Bureau's own monthly state series.

Use it to see where new businesses are being started: which counties take in the most new-business applications, how fast that is growing, and how a county compares with its state. Each application is a likely client for business formation, contracts and employment advice. Pair it with the law-offices and legal-need datasets by county FIPS code. Agents can look up a state and its counties, compare up to ten states, or search a county by name.

Records
3,208
Look up by
52
state
Primary source
3,208

The letters are explained in what P, S, D and U mean.

Where does the data come from?

Read from the Census Bureau's annual county business applications workbook, kept cell for cell; a blank cell (no figure under that county code for that year) stays null. Counties are matched to vintage-2025 FIPS codes (and, for old Connecticut counties, the crosswalks' former codes); state and US records are sums of the county rows. A gate re-reads every cell from the live workbook and checks each state-year sum against the Bureau's monthly state series.

Period covered
January 1, 2005 to December 31, 2025
Places
The whole US, states and counties
How often we refresh it
Once a year
The source's next release
June 2027
Records read
October 29, 2026

Official sources

The sources the records cite most

What does a record look like?

The full records add the dates, the quoted source text and every field in the CSV and JSON files below.

What each of the 36 main columns means
jurisdiction
Two-letter state code (DC included), or US for the national record
level
county, state or us
county
5-digit county FIPS code (vintage 2025; the old Connecticut counties and planning regions both appear, for the years each is published); empty for state and US
countyName
County or county-equivalent name
latestYear
Latest year in the file
status
P: read from the primary source
text
One plain sentence with the latest count and change
value
Business applications in the latest year
unit
What value counts
change_pct_1y
Percent change from the previous year
change_pct_since_2019
Percent change since 2019, the last year before the pandemic
effectiveFrom
First day of the first year
effectiveTo
Last day of the latest year
lastChecked
Date the Census file was last read
ba_2005
Business applications in 2005; null where the county has no figure under this code for that year
ba_2006
Business applications in 2006; null where the county has no figure under this code for that year
ba_2007
Business applications in 2007; null where the county has no figure under this code for that year
ba_2008
Business applications in 2008; null where the county has no figure under this code for that year
ba_2009
Business applications in 2009; null where the county has no figure under this code for that year
ba_2010
Business applications in 2010; null where the county has no figure under this code for that year
ba_2011
Business applications in 2011; null where the county has no figure under this code for that year
ba_2012
Business applications in 2012; null where the county has no figure under this code for that year
ba_2013
Business applications in 2013; null where the county has no figure under this code for that year
ba_2014
Business applications in 2014; null where the county has no figure under this code for that year
ba_2015
Business applications in 2015; null where the county has no figure under this code for that year
ba_2016
Business applications in 2016; null where the county has no figure under this code for that year
ba_2017
Business applications in 2017; null where the county has no figure under this code for that year
ba_2018
Business applications in 2018; null where the county has no figure under this code for that year
ba_2019
Business applications in 2019; null where the county has no figure under this code for that year
ba_2020
Business applications in 2020; null where the county has no figure under this code for that year
ba_2021
Business applications in 2021; null where the county has no figure under this code for that year
ba_2022
Business applications in 2022; null where the county has no figure under this code for that year
ba_2023
Business applications in 2023; null where the county has no figure under this code for that year
ba_2024
Business applications in 2024; null where the county has no figure under this code for that year
ba_2025
Business applications in 2025; null where the county has no figure under this code for that year
id
Stable record id: dataset, place and period

How do I use it in my own tools?

bfs_lookup
For one two-letter state code (or US): the state record and every county in it, with business applications for each year 2005 to 2025, the change over a year and since 2019. Counts are noise-infused by the Census Bureau.
bfs_compare
The business application records of up to 10 states (two-letter codes) or US side by side: the latest count, the change over a year and since 2019.
bfs_search
Business application records whose text matches the words given, such as a county name ("Harris County"), a state name or a 5-digit county FIPS code.

How to cite this dataset

You can reuse, adapt and republish this data, including commercially, under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (CC BY 4.0). The only condition is that you credit Probative and link to the source.

Version
1.0.0, released October 29, 2026
Every version
10.5281/zenodo.23752968 (always points to the newest)
License
CC BY 4.0

Download the data

Free, no email or login. The files are hosted on this site and Zenodo, a public research archive.

Suggested citation

Probative. (2026). New business applications by county (Census Business Formation Statistics) (Version 1.0.0) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23752969

Credit line for a chart, table or article

Source: Probative, New business applications by county (Census Business Formation Statistics), version 1.0.0, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23752969, licensed CC BY 4.0.

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Not legal advice. A business application is a request for an Employer Identification Number, not a company formed, an owner or a client, and the Census Bureau adds noise to county counts, so small differences are not meaningful. Questions about forming or running a business are for a licensed attorney.

What changed recently?

  • 2026-10-29 · Census Bureau business applications for every county, state and the US, 2005 to 2025: 5,671,898 in 2025, with the release's noise flagged. (source)

The full log is in changes.json.

What are the limits?

  • This is an experimental Census Bureau series. An application is a request for an EIN, not a business formed: some are never used and many businesses never apply for one under the same year.
  • The Census Bureau applied differentially private noise to the June 2026 release of this file. Every record is flagged noise; treat small differences between counties or years as meaningless and expect county sums to differ slightly from the state total.
  • County sums stay close to the Bureau's monthly state series in nearly every state-year. A short list of exceptions (Wyoming in recent years, Vermont, and a few states in the first year) is noted on the method page; the Bureau does not explain them.
  • Years follow the Bureau's week-based calendar (some years run a week longer), not the calendar year. A county equivalent that was created or retired (Alaska census areas, Connecticut's move from counties to planning regions, Bedford city in Virginia) has figures only for the years it existed under that code.
  • Applications are placed by the county of the applicant's business address, which for many online applications is a mailing or registered-agent address.
  • Records older than 400 days since their last check are marked stale in the files until we re-check them. Every confirmed error we fix is listed in the data corrections log.

Found a wrong value? Report an error with the record id and the source that shows the right value.

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