Census business applications vs. businesses that open

What does the Census Bureau count?

The Census Bureau’s Business Formation Statistics count applications for an Employer Identification Number — the federal tax ID — filed on IRS Form SS-4. The core series, business applications, keeps the applications made mainly for business purposes. It leaves out applications for tax liens, estates and trusts; those outside the 50 states and the District of Columbia; certain financial services, private households and civic and social organizations; and parts of agriculture and public administration where few applications turn into businesses (U.S. Census Bureau · BFS definitions).

For September 2026 the Census counted 534,947 business applications, +0.5% on August. The three narrower series pick out applications that are more likely to become businesses with payroll:

High-propensity applications are those from a corporation, those that say they are hiring, those that give a first wages-paid date, and those in certain industries — accommodation and food services, parts of construction, manufacturing and retail, some professional services, schools and health care.

Does the Census say how many businesses opened?

No. Its nearest measure is business formations: employer businesses, identified by the first payroll tax liability that follows an application. For September’s applications the Census projects 29,022 formations within four quarters (+1.4% on the projection for August) and 39,703 within eight. These are model projections for one month’s applications, and the Census says plainly that they do not estimate how many startups appeared in a given month. Actual counts take years to arrive: the latest actual four-quarter count covers applications filed up to December 2022.

A formation is also narrower than an opening. A salon owner who works alone, with no payroll, can open the doors and serve customers without ever appearing as a formation. The tax ID itself is an administrative step: the IRS lists hiring employees, operating a partnership or corporation and paying sales and excise taxes among the usual reasons a business needs one (IRS · Get an employer identification number).

What do we count?

Our unit is a business location. Between September 27 and October 27, 2026, 337,207 U.S. records entered our newly opened businesses section. The date is the day a record reached us, not the day the business opened, and the counts are not seasonally adjusted. 73.7% of these new records carry a phone number and 50.0% carry website information, which leaves 168,493 without it.

California had the most new records (29,850), followed by Texas (22,403) and Florida (20,803); California alone had more than New York and Illinois together (20,453). Among the 14 sectors we track, construction companies led with 13,026 new records, ahead of real estate agencies (8,004) and hair and beauty salons (6,247); every sector has its own page in the U.S. data. State by state, with cities and sectors: Texas, Florida and California.

One state side by side: for Texas, the same Census release counted 49,761 business applications for September 2026 (54,196 before seasonal adjustment); in our window, Texas had 22,403 new records, counting only those that already carry a state. Neither number is a share of the other — the unit, the weeks and the definitions all differ.

Why the two series differ

• A filing, not a place. An application asks for a tax ID. It can be made for a holding company, an online-only shop or a freelancer’s practice — businesses that may never have a door a customer walks through. Our record exists only once a place appears as a business.
• Timing. An application often comes weeks or months before an opening, and sometimes no opening follows. The Census “September 2026” covers the weeks of August 30 – October 3, 2026; our window is September 27 – October 27, 2026.
• Branches. A chain’s new location is a new record for us; the application count says nothing about how many locations a business opens.
• Home addresses. A business run from home with no public premises may never show up as a new place, even when it has filed for a tax ID.
• Small and informal trade. Some businesses start trading before they file anything, and not every one-person business has one of the reasons the IRS lists for an EIN.
• Applications that never become a business. Some applications lead to no activity at all. The Census does not publish how many, and our records cannot tell, so we do not estimate it.

That is why we neither subtract one series from the other nor divide them. The same difference between registering and opening, for any country: newly registered vs newly opened. The British equivalent of the Census series is Companies House incorporations, read the same way in UK company incorporations vs real business openings.

What it means if you sell to new businesses

• Use the Census to size and time a market. It is monthly, seasonally adjusted and available by state and, nationally, by industry — the right tool for asking whether new-business activity in your territory is rising.
• Payroll, HR and benefits sellers have their own series. Applications with planned wages (35,786 in September) are the closest the Census gets to your market: applicants who gave a date for paying their first wages.
• Outreach needs places, not totals. The Census publishes no names. To call or visit new businesses you need a list of locations: filter by state, county and sector, keep the records with a phone number, and save the search so new matches arrive by email every day. Searching and counting are free on every plan; a credit is spent only when you first open a record (pricing).
• Check the figures again after November 12. The October release on November 12, 2026 brings the annual update: industry codes revised for the previous five years, the formation series refreshed and seasonal factors recomputed, so the seasonally adjusted figures — September included — can change.