Current Small Business Statistics for 2021

Current Small Business Statistics for 2021

Despite their title, the impact small businesses have on the U.S and global economies is anything but. Small businesses account for 99.9% of U.S.-based businesses. Small businesses are defined as businesses with fewer than 500 employees by the U.S. Small Business Administration, or SBA.

As with most things in the world, entrepreneurs and their small businesses have faced new challenges throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Many individuals used the pandemic as their opportunity to be their own boss and turn that passion project into a business, as new business applications trended up in late 2020. The statistics below show how small businesses are evolving to meet these challenges.

Top 13 Small Business Statistics for 2021

Because of their size, small businesses are more dynamic than their larger corporate counterparts. The small business space changes more rapidly and dramatically than the corporate world.  As such, the stats provided below are from 2020 and 2021 to give the most up to date information possible.

  1. 78% of small business owners expect their business to survive the pandemic, while 4% expect their businesses to fail (Guidant Financial, 2021).
  2. Shoppers spent roughly $19.8 billion at small businesses on Small Business Saturday in 2020 (American Express, 2020).
  3. 61% of small businesses received funding from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL)  (Guidant Financial, 2021).
  4. Small businesses generally have 2-5 employees, with 44% of small businesses falling into this range (Guidant Financial, 2021).
  5. 50% of shoppers on Small Business Saturday reported that they supported a local business by posting on social media, or made a purchase from a small business they saw on social media (American Express, 2020).
  6.  Small businesses make up 46.8% of employees and 39.7% of payroll in the United States (U.S. Small Business Administration, 2021b).
  7. ​​Small businesses were responsible for 62% of job creation between 1995 and 2020 (U.S. Small Business Administration, 2021a)
  8. 39% of small business owners used cash to start their business, which is the most popular form of small business financing (Guidant Financial, 2021).
  9. Of the 15 million job losses reported in Q2 2020, 8.6 million were from small businesses (U.S. Small Business Administration, 2021a).
  10. In 2020, 26.02% of federal contracting funds went to small businesses (U.S. Small Business Administration, 2021a).
  11. 87% of small businesses are owned by Gen X (46%) and Baby Boomers (41%). Millennials hold 14% and Gen Z have just 1% (Guidant Financial, 2021).
  12. 56% of shoppers made an online purchase on Small Business Saturday in 2020 (American Express, 2020).
  13. 32% of small businesses accept cryptocurrencies as payment (Skynova, 2021).

Small Business News and Developments                                    





While most small businesses have 5 or fewer employees and may not be seeking to expand their workforce, a number of companies that started small are branching out. The companies discussed have fewer than 10 employees as of December 2021, despite their newly enlarged budgets. These small businesses all raised millions of dollars to back their products that are made for small businesses.

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