2023 U.S. Nonemployer Statistics by Legal Form and Receipts Size

Annual data from the Department of Commerce details businesses with no paid employees and $1,000+ in receipts. It provides counts and total receipts by industry, broken down by legal form of organization at state and national levels and by receipts-size class nationally. The dataset is updated annually, with the latest metadata from September 2025.

Use Cases

• Analyze the distribution of business counts by industry and legal form of organization across U.S. states.
• Model the relationship between receipts-size class and total receipts for nonemployer establishments at the national level.
• Track annual changes in the number of nonemployer businesses and their aggregate receipts by industry sector.

Strengths

• Published by the authoritative Department of Commerce, ensuring official economic statistics.
• Provides granular data at the subnational level for all U.S. states and selected geographies.
• Annual publication schedule supports longitudinal analysis of nonemployer business trends.

Limitations

• Specific column names, row counts, and data size are not provided in the input metadata.
• Receipts-size class detail is only available at the U.S. national level, not for individual states.
• Excludes businesses with receipts below $1,000 (or $1 for Construction), omitting very small-scale operations.

Provenance

Source

Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Federal administrative data on businesses subject to income tax with no paid employees and minimum receipts.

Time Range

2023 (annual series)

Freshness

Annual data product; metadata last updated September 2025.

Geography

United States, individual states, and selected geographies.