Direct answer: As of 2025, there are approximately 36 million small businesses in the United States. Details and context:
- The official Small Business Administration (SBA) profile for 2025 places the count around 36 million, reflecting the broad definition of small business used by the SBA (generally: independently owned and operated, with fewer than 500 employees or meeting industry-specific revenue thresholds). This aligns with the latest SBA estimates and corroborating industry roundups that use the SBA’s 2025 Small Business Profile as a baseline.
- Various reputable sources and industry trackers in 2024–2025 similarly report numbers in the mid-30s of millions, with figures commonly cited as 34–35 million in 2024 and trending upward toward the 36 million range in 2025, driven by startup activity and ongoing small-business formation.
- Small businesses constitute about 99.8–99.9% of all U.S. businesses, and they employ roughly 60–63 million people, depending on the source and the year, illustrating their large presence in the economy.
Notes on definitions and variability:
- “Small business” definitions vary by data source (SBA benchmarks, Census Nonemployer data, etc.). The 500-employee threshold is a common SBA criterion for employer firms, while nonemployer counts include many sole proprietorships without paid employees. This leads to separate tallies: employer small firms (roughly 5–6 million) and nonemployer firms (tens of millions) within the broader small-business landscape.
- Estimates can differ slightly depending on whether the count uses employer firms only, includes nonemployers, or uses a specific year’s snapshot. The figures above reflect the most commonly cited totals for 2024–2025 that appear across SBA profiles and industry summaries.
If you’d like, I can pull the exact SBA 2025 Small Business Profile figures and show a concise comparison of 2024 vs. 2025 counts, plus a brief note on regional distribution (e.g., states with the most small businesses).
