New Business Statistics 2026: Business Applications and LLC Formations by State

Americans filed 4,927,840 applications to start new businesses from January through September 2026, 15.3% more than in the same months of 2025 and 80.5% more than in 2019, according to the Census Bureau's Business Formation Statistics (BFS, not seasonally adjusted). Seasonally adjusted applications reached 534,947 in September 2026, and July's 576,264 was the highest monthly figure since the series began in July 2004. The growth sits mostly in filings that rarely become employers: high-propensity applications rose only 4.7%, applications with planned wages fell 15.3%, and Census projects that 270,089 of this year's applications (5.5%) will turn into payroll businesses within four quarters.

Key takeaways:

• 4,927,840 business applications were filed January–September 2026, up 15.3% from 4,273,086 in the same months of 2025 (Census BFS, not seasonally adjusted)
• 5,671,836 applications in 2025 set the annual record for BFS data, which start in 2004, and more than doubled the 2,795,897 filed in 2015
• Florida, California and Texas filed 31.1% of all 2026 applications; Wyoming had the most per resident at 114.6 per 1,000, against a US rate of 14.4 (Jupid analysis of Census BFS data)
• Only 28.1% of January–September 2026 applications were high-propensity, down from 37.7% in the same months of 2019
• 78.9% of private establishments survive their first year, 47.2% reach five years and 34.2% reach ten (BLS Business Employment Dynamics, data through March 2026)
• 235,393 LLCs were formed in Delaware in 2025, and 3,325,000 LLCs filed partnership returns for tax year 2023 (IRS Statistics of Income)

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How Many New Businesses Were Started in 2026?

Through September 2026, Americans filed 4,927,840 business applications (not seasonally adjusted), or 4,728,479 on a seasonally adjusted basis, up 15.2% from the same months of 2025, according to Census BFS data released October 14, 2026. A business application is a request for an Employer Identification Number (EIN) on a Form SS-4 EIN application that Census classifies as made for business purposes. Census publishes the series monthly for the nation, four regions and every state.

Source: Census Bureau, Business Formation Statistics, September 2026 release, not seasonally adjusted. Formations for 2019 are actual counts; 2025 and 2026 are Census projections. Percentage changes are Jupid analysis of Census BFS data.

The comparison is like for like. BFS builds each month from whole weeks, and January through September covers 39 weeks in 2019, 2025 and 2026 alike.

2026 Business Applications by Month

April, July and September 2026 each contain five BFS weeks, which is why their unadjusted totals jump. Use the seasonally adjusted column for month-to-month comparisons: September's 534,947 was up 0.5% from August. July 2026 beat the previous seasonally adjusted high of 546,719, set in July 2020.

How Many Businesses Are Started Each Year?

Americans filed 5,671,836 business applications in 2025, the most in any full year of BFS data and 62.1% more than the 3,498,990 filed in 2019. Applications have more than doubled since 2015, while high-propensity applications grew from 1,204,860 to 1,708,842 and applications with planned wages ended the decade almost where they started.

Source: Census Bureau BFS, annual sums of monthly not seasonally adjusted data. Employer formations are actual counts through 2022 and Census projections for 2023–2025.

BFS years are built from weeks: 2018 and 2025 contain 53 weeks, the other years 52. On a per-week basis 2025 still holds the record, at 107,016 applications a week. For 2026 to match the 2025 total, October through December 2026 needs 743,996 more applications; the same three months of 2025 brought 1,398,750.

Which States Have the Most New Business Applications in 2026?

Florida led all states with 577,694 business applications from January through September 2026, followed by California with 497,172 and Texas with 457,383, according to Census BFS state data. The three states filed 31.1% of the national total. Applications rose in 48 states and the District of Columbia and fell only in Washington (-18.8%) and Hawaii (-7.1%).

Filing steps and state fees for the three largest markets are in our Florida LLC guide, California LLC guide and Texas LLC guide.

New Business Applications per Capita: Top 10 and Bottom 10

Wyoming had the most business applications per resident in January–September 2026, 114.6 per 1,000 people, about eight times the US rate of 14.4, according to Jupid analysis of Census BFS data and Census Vintage 2025 population estimates. West Virginia had the lowest rate, 8.8 per 1,000.

Treat Wyoming and Delaware as outliers. Both are popular places to form an entity for owners who live in other states, and BFS places each application in a state using address information on Form SS-4, which for an out-of-state owner can be a registered agent or business address in the formation state. Leaving those two aside, Florida (24.6), Colorado (22.8) and Montana (22.6) had the highest rates. For owners comparing the two formation favorites, the Wyoming LLC guide and Delaware LLC guide cover fees and annual requirements.

Fastest-Growing States for New Business Applications

Alaska posted the fastest growth in business applications, up 48.1% from January–September 2025 to the same months of 2026, followed by Oklahoma (+35.4%), Kentucky (+34.0%), Missouri (+30.3%) and Mississippi (+30.0%), per Jupid analysis of Census BFS data. Among states that grew, Delaware (+4.1%) and Oregon (+6.0%) grew the least.

New Business Applications by State: Full 2026 Table

All 50 states and DC, January–September 2026, not seasonally adjusted. Per-capita rates, ranks and changes are Jupid analysis of Census BFS data; population is the Census Bureau's Vintage 2025 estimate for July 1, 2025. High-propensity share is the portion of a state's applications that Census flags as likely to become employers.

Source: Census Bureau BFS, September 2026 release; Census Bureau Vintage 2025 state population estimates (NST-EST2025-ALLDATA). State figures sum exactly to the US total. Puerto Rico is published separately and excluded from US totals by Census.

Which Industries Are New Businesses Starting In?

Retail trade drew the most business applications in January–September 2026, 933,528 or 18.9% of the total, followed by professional, scientific and technical services (728,921) and construction (451,105), according to Census BFS industry data. Information (+39.8%) and professional services (+29.6%) grew fastest from the same months of 2025, while agriculture (-2.6%) and utilities (-8.5%) were the only sectors to decline.

Census assigns industry codes from the business name and description on each EIN application, then revises codes for the previous five years at its annual update, so sector figures can move after the November release. BFS publishes industry data for the nation only, not by state.

How Many Business Applications Become Employer Businesses?

Census projects that 270,089 of the 4,927,840 business applications filed in January–September 2026 will become employer businesses within four quarters, a projected formation rate of 5.5% (Jupid analysis of Census BFS data). For applications filed in the same months of 2019, the actual rate was 8.0%. Across full years, the share of applications that became employers within four quarters fell from 10.4% in 2015 to a projected 5.5% in 2025.

A business formation, in BFS terms, is the first payroll tax liability recorded for an EIN that came from a business application. The latest seasonally adjusted projections are 29,022 formations within four quarters and 39,703 within eight quarters from applications filed in September 2026.

The application boom since 2020 comes from filings without hiring signals. Applications outside the high-propensity group totaled 3,541,482 in January–September 2026, up 20.1% from 2025 and more than double the 1,702,296 filed in the same months of 2019.

How Many LLCs Are Formed Each Year?

No federal agency publishes a national count of new LLCs. Census BFS does not split business applications by entity type, even though Form SS-4 asks on line 8a whether the applicant is an LLC; the only legal-form series Census publishes is applications from corporations, 392,447 in January–September 2026. LLC formation counts come from state filing offices, and only some publish them.

The closest national figure comes from the IRS: 3,325,000 LLCs filed a partnership return (Form 1065) for tax year 2023, 72.7% of all 4,576,000 partnership returns and up from 2,432,000 in tax year 2014, according to IRS Statistics of Income Table 9a. That count leaves out every single-member LLC and any LLC taxed as a corporation, so the true number of LLCs is higher.

Colorado, Connecticut and New York counts are domestic LLCs by formation date in each state's official open-data registry, counted by Jupid on November 9, 2026. Connecticut excludes rejected filings. New York's dataset lists only entities still active, so its counts are a floor.

Delaware formed 235,393 LLCs in calendar 2025, 70.4% of its 334,461 new entities and 11.3% more than the 211,464 LLCs formed in 2024, according to the Delaware Division of Corporations 2025 Annual Report. Delaware's register held 1,653,329 LLCs at the end of 2025. In Colorado, which our Colorado LLC guide covers, the Secretary of State's Q3 2026 indicators report found that new entity filings track Census BFS closely, with a correlation of 0.92. What a new LLC costs to form and keep differs by state; our breakdown of LLC cost by state in 2026 lists every filing fee and annual charge, and the Wyoming LLC tax and fee calculator shows the yearly cost in the per-capita leader.

What Percentage of New Businesses Survive?

78.9% of private-sector establishments that opened in the year ended March 2025 were still operating in March 2026, according to Table 7 of the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Business Employment Dynamics (BED) data. Of establishments that opened in the year ended March 2021, 47.2% survived five years; of those that opened in the year ended March 2016, 34.2% survived ten.

Source: BLS Business Employment Dynamics, Table 7, Survival of private sector establishments by opening year, total private, data through March 2026. Each row is a different opening cohort.

One-year survival has stayed between 75.2% (establishments opened in the year ended March 2008) and 80.9% (the year ended March 2020) for every cohort since 1994. BED is built from state unemployment insurance records, so it tracks private establishments with employees, not every EIN or LLC; 969,316 such establishments opened in the year ended March 2026.

What These Numbers Do Not Mean

• An application is not an opening. BFS counts EIN requests on Form SS-4. Many never lead to sales or hiring, and Census projects only 5.5% of 2026 applications will reach payroll within four quarters.
• Many businesses never apply. Census notes that sole proprietors without employees can use a Social Security number instead of an EIN, so BFS misses much of self-employment. Our self-employment statistics for 2026 cover the 31.1 million Schedule C returns behind that gap.
• High-propensity applications are a subset, not an extra count. The 1,386,358 high-propensity applications are inside the 4,927,840 total. Census flags an application as high-propensity when it comes from a corporation, plans to hire, lists a first wages-paid date, or falls in industries with high hiring rates such as accommodation and food services.
• Seasonally adjusted and unadjusted totals are different numbers. January–September 2026 sums to 4,728,479 adjusted and 4,927,840 unadjusted; never mix the two in one comparison. Census recomputes seasonal factors once a year, so adjusted figures, including July's record, are revised at each annual update.
• A state count reflects the address on the application. Census excludes applications without a state and county geocode but does not publish which SS-4 address line it uses. A Wyoming count says little about where owners live or work.
• Applications are not LLCs. BFS has no entity-type split; a sole proprietor, an LLC and a corporation each count once per EIN request.
• State filing counts can include fraud. Colorado's Secretary of State, which may now remove fraudulent filings that have chargebacks, recorded 10,874 chargebacks in Q3 2026; those filings no longer appear in its records, and the state counted 47,165 new entity filings that quarter.

Methodology and Sources

All Census figures come from bfs_monthly.csv and month_date_table.csv, downloaded November 9, 2026 from the September 2026 BFS release (release CB26-163, published October 14, 2026). Year-to-date means January through September, the latest published month, and figures are not seasonally adjusted unless labeled. Per-capita rates divide each state's January–September 2026 applications by its July 1, 2025 population from NST-EST2025-ALLDATA.csv (Census Vintage 2025, posted January 27, 2026), times 1,000. Survival rates come from BLS us_age_naics_00_table7.txt, total private, data through March 2026. LLC counts come from the Delaware 2025 annual report PDF, IRS SOI file 23pa09a.xlsx, and Socrata queries of the Colorado, Connecticut and New York registries run November 9, 2026. Growth rates, per-capita figures, ranks and shares are Jupid analysis.

Census publishes BFS monthly, and we rerun the same analysis after each release. The October 2026 data, scheduled for November 12, 2026, include the annual update in which Census recomputes seasonal factors, revises industry codes for the previous five years and updates formation counts.

How to cite this page: Jupid, "New Business Statistics 2026: Business Applications and LLC Formations by State," jupid.com/blog/new-business-statistics-2026, based on U.S. Census Bureau Business Formation Statistics, September 2026 release.

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Sources

• U.S. Census Bureau: Business Formation Statistics, monthly data file bfs_monthly.csv and data dictionary
• U.S. Census Bureau: Business Formation Statistics, September 2026 release (October 14, 2026)
• U.S. Census Bureau: BFS methodology and FAQs
• U.S. Census Bureau: State population totals, Vintage 2025 (NST-EST2025-ALLDATA)
• BLS: Establishment age and survival data, Table 7
• IRS: Form SS-4, Application for Employer Identification Number (Rev. December 2025)
• IRS Statistics of Income: Partnership statistics by entity type, Table 9a
• Delaware Division of Corporations: 2025 Annual Report
• Colorado Secretary of State: Quarterly Business and Economic Indicators, Q3 2026
• Colorado Information Marketplace: Business Entities in Colorado
• Connecticut Open Data: Connecticut Business Registry, Business Master
• New York Open Data: Active Corporations, Beginning 1800

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This page is for general informational purposes and does not constitute tax, legal, or accounting advice. Statistics reflect the latest data each agency published as of November 9, 2026 and use each agency's own definitions; seasonally adjusted Census figures are revised annually. For advice specific to your situation, consult a qualified tax professional.