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. The BTOS, designed to complement other economic surveys, gathers information on revenues, employees, hours worked, and inventories. It also covers multiunit or multilocation businesses.
The survey represents all employer businesses in the country except farms. It provides ongoing data every two weeks with detailed breakdowns by geography and industry subsector. This frequent reporting allows for timely insights into how events such as natural disasters or economic crises affect businesses and helps monitor recovery efforts.
About 1.2 million businesses are included in the BTOS sample, divided into six panels of roughly 200,000 each. Each panel is surveyed every 12 weeks over a year-long period. According to the Census Bureau, it takes respondents an average of nine minutes to complete the survey.
Data releases will occur biweekly and will be available by sector, state, and for the 25 largest metropolitan areas in the country. In November 2025, questions related to artificial intelligence were added to the survey; results from these questions are expected in 2026. The information collected supports local, state, and federal officials in policy decisions and assists businesses with economic planning.
There is no formal news release accompanying this announcement; it was distributed as a tip sheet.
