The U.S. Census Bureau today released the 2023 County Business Patterns (CBP). CBP provides annual subnational economic data for businesses with paid employees.
The number of establishments, employment during the week of March 12, first quarter payroll, and annual payroll are provided for nearly 1,000 industries, as defined by the 2017 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). The data are available at the national, state, combined statistical area, metropolitan/micropolitan statistical area, county, congressional district, and ZIP code levels. In addition, the data are presented by legal form of organization (U.S. and state only) and employment size of the establishment.
The CBP also includes data for Puerto Rico and the Island Areas at the state and county-equivalent levels.
The data are useful for studying economic activity of small areas. Federal agencies, state and local governments, and private businesses use the data to determine employee concentrations and trends by industry, analyze market potential, measure the effectiveness of programs, develop budgets, and plan future policies and programs.
CBP data are derived from the Business Register, a database that is continuously updated with administrative data from other federal agencies, such as the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), as well as data collected by the Census Bureau. CBP datasets from 1986 to the current reference year can be downloaded. In addition, CBP tables from 2012 to the current reference year are available on data.census.gov.