U.S. business lists: registries, directories and feeds
Auspector ·
No single source lists every business in the United States. State registries hold legal entities rather than storefronts, the Census Bureau publishes counts rather than names, and directories and new-opening feeds list places with very different fill rates and freshness — our own U.S. database holds 24,346,376 records, and 337,207 new ones entered our newly opened businesses section between September 27 and October 27, 2026.
Is there a list of every business in the U.S.?
No. Corporations and LLCs are formed under state law, and each state keeps its own registry, with its own search, its own fields and its own rules. Federal statistical agencies see businesses through tax and survey data, and they publish counts, not names. Everything else — directories, databases, feeds — is compiled by someone, and is only as good as what was collected and when.
So the useful answer to “where do I get a list of all businesses” is a question back: which kind of business, and what do you need on each record? The four kinds of source answer it differently.
| Source | One record is | What you get | What you don’t get | How current |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| State business registries | A legal entity: a corporation, LLC or partnership | Legal name, entity type, status, filing date, registered agent and an address on file | A phone number, what the business does, its storefronts and branches | Updated as filings are processed; the date is a filing date, not an opening |
| Census Bureau statistics | A count, not a business | Business applications each month; establishments by county and industry each year | Names, addresses, phone numbers | Applications monthly; the latest county counts cover 2023 |
| Business directories and databases | Depends on the product: a company, a person or a place | Whatever was compiled: usually name, address and category, often a phone number | Any field the compiler did not fill — ask for fill rates | As old as each record; ask when it was collected |
| New-opening feeds | A place: one business location | Trading address, category, phone number and website information where available | Legal entity details; the opening date itself | Daily; the date is the day a record reached the feed |
State business registries: entities, not openings
In most states the Secretary of State’s office keeps the register of corporations, LLCs and other entities formed or registered there; in a few, another state office does the job. A registry record typically carries the legal name, entity type, status, filing date and a registered agent with an address on file — often an agent service, an accountant or a home rather than a shop.
What a registry cannot tell you is whether anything opened. One LLC can run a dozen locations, and many entities never open one: holding companies, property LLCs, consultancies run from a kitchen table. A sole proprietor trading under their own name may not appear at all, and a company formed in one state and active in others can show up in several registries. Search screens, fields and bulk access differ from state to state.
Registry data is the right list when your customer is the legal entity itself — business banking, formation and compliance services, trade credit. The gap between a company being registered and a place opening is laid out in newly registered vs newly opened.
Census Bureau statistics: counts, not names
The Census Bureau’s Business Formation Statistics count business applications — in its definition, “an EIN application made predominantly for business purposes”. In September 2026 there were 534,947, seasonally adjusted, up 0.5% on August (U.S. Census Bureau · Business Formation Statistics, September 2026, released October 14, 2026). An application is a filing, not an opening, and the release names no one; why the two numbers do not line up is in Census business applications vs openings.
For sizing a territory, U.S. Census Bureau · County Business Patterns counts establishments with paid employees by county and industry, once a year; the most recent edition covers 2023. Businesses without employees fall outside it, and it is a count too: it tells you how many dental offices a county has, not which ones. We never subtract our figures from official ones or divide one by the other — the series count different things, on different dates, by different rules.
Business directories and databases: ask what one record is
Compiled databases come closest to “a list of all businesses”, and they differ the most. Some hold companies, some hold people with job titles, some hold places; the three kinds are compared in business databases: three kinds. Before you buy one for U.S. work, ask:
- What does one record represent? A chain with forty branches is one company and forty locations.
- What is the fill rate of the field you need, in your state and your categories? A national average hides the gaps; how to read it is in fill rate: what to check before you buy a business list.
- When was each record collected, and how do new businesses get in?
- Is the count measured over the whole database, or estimated from a sample?
- Can you see a random sample from your own segment? Not a hand-picked showcase.
Our own answer to the second question, for the country as a whole: 83.1% of U.S. records carry a phone number and 61.7% carry website information. Every state page below shows the same shares for that state.
New-opening feeds: places, dated when they reach us
A feed adds businesses as they appear. That is our newly opened businesses section: every day we re-scan the web and find newly opened businesses. One record is one location, with the trading address, a category that says what the business does and, where available, a phone number and website information. A record counts as new for 30 days from the day it reached us, not from the day the business opened.
Between September 27 and October 27, 2026, 337,207 new U.S. records entered the section — about 11,240 a day, although arrivals swing from day to day. 73.7% of them carry a phone number, and 50.0% — 168,493 records — carry no website information at all.
| On the record | New records | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Phone number | 248,690 | 73.7% |
| Own website (own domain) | 153,618 | 45.6% |
| Website information (own website or platform page) | 168,714 | 50.0% |
| No website information | 168,493 | 50.0% |
Where new business leads come from, and how each kind is priced, is in new business leads: where they come from.
Which states get the most new businesses?
| State | New records | All records in our database | New per 1,000 records |
|---|---|---|---|
| California | 29,850 | 2,511,092 | 11.9 |
| Texas | 22,403 | 1,909,420 | 11.7 |
| Florida | 20,803 | 1,905,037 | 10.9 |
| New York | 12,413 | 1,270,209 | 9.8 |
| Illinois | 8,040 | 775,268 | 10.4 |
| Ohio | 7,678 | 704,761 | 10.9 |
| New Jersey | 7,630 | 617,383 | 12.4 |
| Georgia | 7,023 | 743,641 | 9.4 |
| Pennsylvania | 6,518 | 828,933 | 7.9 |
| North Carolina | 5,617 | 764,571 | 7.3 |
California leads with 29,850 new records, followed by Texas (22,403) and Florida (20,803). Relative to their size in our database, New Jersey received the most new records of the 10 (12.4 per 1,000) and North Carolina the fewest (7.3). Longer state reports, with cities and sectors: new businesses in California and new businesses in Texas.
A data page for every state
Each state page shows its record count, new records in the last 30 days, the shares with a phone number and with a website, 14 sectors and its largest cities, measured in our live database and refreshed daily. If your question is “a list of businesses in one state”, start there.
| Region | State pages |
|---|---|
| Northeast | Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont |
| Midwest | Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Wisconsin |
| South | Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia |
| West | Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming |
Which list do you need?
- Your customer is the company — an account, a filing, a credit line: the state registry.
- You are sizing a market: Census counts.
- You call or visit established local businesses: a place-based database, checked for fill rate in your state.
- You want businesses as they open: a new-opening feed.
In Auspector, search and counting are unlimited on every plan, so you can see how many new or established businesses match a state and a category before spending anything; a credit is used only when you open a record’s details for the first time (pricing). Fill rates for every territory are in the coverage report; what a record holds — and that there is no email column and no named-person column — is in the FAQ.