The U.S. Census Bureau has released new data products from the Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS), which tracks business conditions and forecasts on a regular basis. The survey covers multiunit and multilocation businesses, aiming to supplement other economic surveys with information about revenues, employment, hours worked, and inventories.
BTOS is designed to represent all employer businesses in the United States except for farms. Its continuous, biweekly data collection provides timely updates on key economic indicators at both geographic and industry subsector levels. This enables policymakers and analysts to observe how events such as natural disasters or economic crises affect businesses and track recovery progress.
Approximately 1.2 million businesses are included in the BTOS sample. These are divided into six groups of around 200,000 businesses each, with every group surveyed once every 12 weeks throughout the year. According to the Census Bureau, completing the survey takes about nine minutes per respondent.
Results from BTOS will be available every two weeks by sector, state, and for the 25 largest metropolitan statistical areas. In November 2025, new questions related to artificial intelligence were added; responses to these will be published in 2026. The Census Bureau states that this data provides local, state, and federal officials with essential real-time information for policy decisions while also helping businesses make informed economic choices.
There was no separate news release issued for this announcement.
