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Business & Economy · October 14, 2026 · 2 min read

September business applications rise 0.5 percent; projected formations are not startup counts

By Econ Data Tools Editorial Team

Published October 14, 2026 • Updated October 14, 2026

Reviewed by Independent original-source review

Census reports 534,947 seasonally adjusted applications and projects 29,022 employer formations within four quarters. The October 14 release measures applications and future cohort outcomes, not September openings.

The U.S. Census Bureau released September 2026 Business Formation Statistics on October 14, 2026. Seasonally adjusted business applications totaled 534,947, up 0.5 percent from August. These applications are requests for Employer Identification Numbers through IRS Form SS-4, not a count of businesses that opened or hired workers during September. Census projected that 29,022 employer businesses would form within four quarters from the September application cohort, up 1.4 percent from the analogous August projection. The estimate is forward-looking. It is not the total number of startups formed in September, and it does not mean all applications will become employers. The formation series identifies employer business formations through the first instance of payroll tax liabilities associated with an application. The within-eight-quarters projection was 39,703, up 1.0 percent from August. The four-quarter and eight-quarter figures describe different time horizons and should not be added together. The September release also reported 147,331 high-propensity applications, up 1.3 percent, and 35,786 applications with planned wages, up 4.3 percent. Applications from corporations totaled 40,951, down 0.2 percent. These are seasonally adjusted application categories, not observed hiring totals or guarantees that a business will start paying wages. The release marks statistical significance as not applicable or not measurable for the reported percentage changes. A positive monthly percentage therefore should not be described as a statistically established acceleration. The data describe business initiation activity and projected employer formation, not profitability, survival or household income. Census scheduled the next release for November 12, 2026 and said the annual update would revise underlying industry codes, formation information and seasonal factors. That creates a revision boundary for comparisons. Readers should retain the September cohort, projection horizon and seasonal-adjustment label rather than treat the October publication date as the month businesses opened.

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