Data behind each state page
Each state page combines business formation, county concentration, labor-market structure, SBA lending, unincorporated receipts, bankruptcy filings, and federal contract demand. Together, these sources show what changed, where activity is concentrated, and which industries account for the largest employer bases.
Sources. Public files and APIs come from Census, BLS, SBA, IRS, U.S. Courts, the Federal Reserve Small Business Credit Survey, and USAspending.
Geography. State pages use state abbreviations and county FIPS codes where available. County population denominators come from Census Vintage 2025 county estimates.
Reporting periods. Annual measures use the latest complete annual file. Partial-year Census application figures carry a Jan-May 2026 label.
Comparison periods. Business applications compare 2025 with 2024 and the pre-pandemic 2019 baseline. QCEW labor metrics compare 2024 with 2019.
Metric notes. Charts and tables identify early filings, population denominators, fiscal-year timing, and bankruptcy venue effects where they apply.
Applications are an early signal
Business applications arrive before employer counts, jobs, and tax receipts. Projected employer formations, QCEW establishments, employment, tax records, lending, bankruptcy filings, and contract obligations show what happens after the initial filing.
Raw application counts capture interest in forming entities along with registered-agent activity, filing-location choices, holding-company structures, and one-person businesses. Rankings therefore pair filing volume with population, employer-base, and projected-formation measures.
Formation. Census BFS measures applications, employer-likely filings, and projected employer formations.
Operating activity. QCEW establishments and jobs, IRS receipts, and SBA lending add evidence from active businesses and employers.
Filing distortion. High applications per projected formation, high applications per establishment, a low employer-likely share, or concentrated county filings reduce confidence in raw application totals.
Scale. Population, employer establishments, source-specific baselines, and the Formation Reality Score make comparisons less dependent on state size.
Metric definitions
| Metric | Definition used on state pages | Main caveat |
|---|---|---|
| Business applications | Census BFS applications for employer identification numbers. | Applications are early filings. Confirmed operating-business counts arrive later. |
| High-propensity applications | Census BFS applications with characteristics associated with future employer businesses. | Final employer counts arrive later. |
| Applications per 10,000 residents | County business applications divided by Census Vintage 2025 resident population, multiplied by 10,000. | Resident population is the denominator. Filing-location patterns can create outliers. |
| Formation Reality Score | A percentile-weighted state score that starts with projected employer formations, planned-wage applications, employer-establishment context, establishment growth, and unincorporated return/form density. | The score applies a filing-distortion penalty where total applications appear inflated relative to employer-formation or local operating-business signals. |
| Private-sector establishments and jobs | BLS QCEW annual private-sector employer establishments and annual average employment. | QCEW covers employer labor-market activity. Nonemployer activity appears in other datasets. |
| SBA approvals | Gross approved 7(a) and 504 loan amounts from SBA FOIA files. | SBA approvals cover part of the small-business credit market. |
| Unincorporated receipts | IRS SOI Schedules C and Forms 1065 gross receipts and income/profit aggregates. | Tax-year data trails faster administrative series. |
| Business bankruptcy cases | U.S. Courts F-5A business-debt cases by county row. | County rows can reflect filing venue and related cases. |
| Federal contract demand | USAspending FY2025 procurement obligations to recipients located in the state. | Recipient location can differ from where work is performed. |
Where the data can mislead
Census applications show where people create entities or apply for EINs. Opening, hiring, and sales appear later in employer and tax datasets.
Very high county application rates can reflect local entrepreneurship, registered-agent activity, legal-entity formation, business-address conventions, or other filing-location patterns.
Labor, tax, lending, bankruptcy, and procurement sources answer distinct questions. The Formation Reality Score combines formation measures; the other sections report each source separately.
Update schedule
Census BFS updates monthly. BLS QCEW, IRS SOI, SBA FOIA, U.S. Courts, Fed SBCS, and USAspending follow separate release schedules. A state page can change when one source releases new data, even if the other annual files have not moved.
Partial-year, fiscal-year, tax-year, and trailing-12-month periods are named beside each metric.