The U.S. Census Bureau has released new data from the Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS), which tracks business conditions and projections across the United States, excluding farms. The BTOS is designed to complement other economic surveys by collecting ongoing information on revenues, employees, hours worked, and inventories.
The survey covers approximately 1.2 million businesses with data collected every two weeks. These businesses are divided into six panels of about 200,000 each, and each panel reports once every 12 weeks over a year. According to the Census Bureau, it takes an average respondent around nine minutes to complete the survey.
BTOS results are made available biweekly and can be accessed by sector, state, and for the 25 largest metropolitan statistical areas. In November 2025, new questions related to artificial intelligence were added to the survey; data from these questions will be published in Spring 2026.
According to the Census Bureau: “BTOS provides insight into the state of the economy by providing continuous, timely data for key economic measures every two weeks. By providing continuous data with geographic and subsector detail, BTOS captures the impact of events like natural disasters and economic crises and assists in monitoring recovery efforts.”
Survey findings support policymakers at local, state, and federal levels by supplying real-time information for decision-making processes. Businesses also use this data to inform their own economic strategies.
There is no formal news release associated with this announcement; only a tip sheet was provided.
