2025 Firms in Focus chartbooks on small business data
The 2025 Firms in Focus chartbooks break down small business data from the Federal Reserve’s 2024 Small Business Credit Survey by business characteristics, owner demographics, and geographic location (states and metropolitan statistical areas).
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Business characteristics chartbooks | Owner demographics chartbooks | Geographic location chartbooks
How do small businesses’ challenges compare across the United States? How do business conditions differ between urban and rural firms nationwide? How do the credit-seeking experiences of younger business owners compare to those of older business owners?
Answers to these questions and more are available through Firms in Focus, a series of chartbooks stemming from the findings of the 2024 Small Business Credit Survey (SBCS) conducted by the Federal Reserve. Find the comparisons that interest you, whether by business characteristics, owner demographics, or geographic location (including 25 states and 14 metropolitan statistical areas). Each chartbook includes data collected on
- Small business performance: revenue, employment, and business conditions
- Small business challenges: financial and operational challenges and actions taken in response
- Small business debt and financial services: outstanding debt and use of financial services
- Small business financing: financing applications and outcomes
- Small business demographics: firms and owner characteristics
Analyzing small business data by characteristics can provide a helpful framework for understanding business experiences and credit outcomes. Identifying the challenges affecting particular sets of small businesses can enable policymakers and service providers to develop targeted solutions.
All 52 of this year’s chartbooks are available for download below.
Business characteristics
Age of firm chartbook downloadDemographic data collected through the survey offer detailed insights on how a small business’s growth, challenges, and financing experiences change over time. Get more data and reports in our age of firms category. |
Credit risk chartbook downloadCredit risk—a measure of a firm’s creditworthiness derived from the credit score of the business and its owners—is an important factor in small firms’ access to credit and, ultimately, the ability to grow. Get more data and reports in our credit risk category. |
Employment size chartbook downloadSmall businesses are companies with fewer than 500 employees. Yet the differences between a firm with five employees and one with 400 employees can be large, so data breakdowns by firm size can be helpful to understanding businesses’ unique challenges and financing needs. Get more data and reports in our employment size category. |
Industry chartbook downloadThe experiences of a bar or restaurant owner can be quite different from the experiences of an owner of an IT consulting firm. That’s why segmenting out businesses by industry when analyzing their well-being provides valuable insights. Get more data and reports in our industry category. |
Revenue size chartbook downloadThe experiences and challenges of small businesses vary significantly by revenue size. The SBCS collects data on annual revenues and provides perspectives on differences across revenue size categories. Get more data and reports in our revenue size category. |
Rural and urban firms chartbook downloadThe physical location of a small business provides important economic, demographic, and cultural context for understanding the firm’s experiences. Small businesses in rural and urban areas share some characteristics but are different in other ways. Get more data and reports in our rural and urban category. |
Owner characteristics
Age of owner(s) chartbook downloadWhile younger business owners often rely on their personal funds or loans from family or friends to fund their business, older business owners are more often successful at obtaining credit through applications for traditional forms of financing like loans and lines of credit. Get more data and reports in our age of owner(s) category. |
Disability status of owner(s) chartbook downloadThe SBCS included a question on disability status for the first time in 2024, allowing for new insights into how small businesses owned by a person with a disability may have different experiences such as with interacting with the financial system or responding to challenges faced by the business. Nearly 6% of small employer businesses in the 2024 survey are majority-owned by a person with a disability. |
Gender of owner(s) chartbook downloadThe experiences and credit outcomes of small businesses may be linked, at least in part, to the gender of the business owners. Get more data and reports in our gender of owner(s) category. |
Immigrant-owned small business chartbook downloadImmigrants are a vital part of the nation’s business sector, and SBCS data provide insight into the experiences of these businesses. Get more data and reports in our immigrant-owned firms category. |
LGBTQ-owned small business chartbook downloadThe SBCS finds that approximately 4 percent of small businesses are majority owned by somebody who identifies as a member of the LGBTQ community—and the survey finds that the experiences of these firms differ in some ways from other firms. Get more data and reports in our LGBTQ-owned firms category. |
Race and ethnicity of owner(s) chartbook downloadResearch indicates that the number of firms owned by people of color has grown in recent years, suggesting that these businesses may comprise an increasingly large share of the small business sector. Get more data and reports in our race and ethnicity category. |
Veteran-owned small business chartbook downloadAbout 9 percent of small employer businesses in the 2024 Small Business Credit Survey were majority-veteran-owned. Get more data and reports in our veteran-owned firms category. |
Geographic location
Cities/MSAs
Atlanta chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about small businesses in the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA MSA. |
Boston chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about small businesses in the Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH MSA. |
Chicago chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about small businesses in the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI MSA. |
Honolulu chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about small businesses in the Urban Honolulu, HI MSA. |
Houston chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about small businesses in the Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, TX MSA. |
Los Angeles chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about small businesses in the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA MSA. |
Miami chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about small businesses in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL MSA. |
New York City chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about small businesses in the New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA MSA. |
Philadelphia chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about small businesses in the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD MSA. |
Phoenix chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about small businesses in the Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ MSA. |
Portland chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about small businesses in the Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA MSA. |
San Francisco chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about small businesses in the San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA MSA. |
Tampa chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about small businesses in the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL MSA. |
Washington, D.C., chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about small businesses in the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV MSA. |
States
Alabama chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about Alabama small businesses. |
Arizona chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about Arizona small businesses. |
California chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about California small businesses. |
Colorado chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about Colorado small businesses. |
Connecticut chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about Connecticut small businesses. |
Florida chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about Florida small businesses. |
Georgia chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about Georgia small businesses. |
Hawaii chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about Hawaii small businesses. |
Illinois chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about Illinois small businesses. |
Louisiana chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about Louisiana small businesses. |
Maryland chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about Maryland small businesses. |
Massachusetts chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about Massachusetts small businesses. |
Michigan chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about Michigan small businesses. |
Minnesota chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about Minnesota small businesses. |
Missouri chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about Missouri small businesses. |
New Jersey chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about New Jersey small businesses. |
New York chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about New York small businesses. |
North Carolina chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about North Carolina small businesses. |
Ohio chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about Ohio small businesses. |
Pennsylvania chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about Pennsylvania small businesses. |
Tennessee chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about Tennessee small businesses. |
Texas chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about Texas small businesses. |
Virginia chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about Virginia small businesses. |
Washington chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about Washington small businesses. |
Wisconsin chartbook downloadThis chartbook provides survey data about Wisconsin small businesses. |
About the Small Business Credit Survey
The 2024 survey was fielded from September to November 2024. It yielded 7,653 responses from a nationwide convenience sample of small employer firms with 1–499 full- or part-time employees across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. This publication summarizes data for firms that were currently operating or temporarily closed at the time of the survey.
The SBCS is an annual survey of firms with fewer than 500 employees, which represent 99.7% of employer establishments in the United States. The survey is a collaboration of all 12 Federal Reserve Banks and provides timely information about small business conditions to policymakers and service providers. Respondents are asked to report information about their business performance, financing needs and choices, and borrowing experiences. Responses to the SBCS provide insights into the dynamics behind lending trends and shed light on various segments of the small business population. The SBCS is not a random sample; results should be analyzed with awareness of potential biases that are associated with convenience samples. Get detailed information about the survey design and weighting methodology.
Suggested Citation
“2025 Firms in Focus chartbooks on small business data.” 2025. Small Business Credit Survey. Federal Reserve Banks. https://doi.org/10.55350/sbcs-20250512