The U.S. Census Bureau has released new data from the Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS), which tracks business conditions and projections on an ongoing basis. The survey covers multiunit and multilocation businesses, providing information that complements other economic surveys by collecting data on revenues, employees, hours, and inventories.
BTOS represents all employer businesses in the United States except farms. It offers continuous, timely updates every two weeks with detailed geographic and industry breakdowns. This allows the survey to capture the effects of events such as natural disasters or economic crises and helps monitor recovery efforts.
The BTOS sample includes about 1.2 million businesses, with biweekly data collection. These businesses are divided into six panels of around 200,000 each, reporting every 12 weeks over a year. According to the Census Bureau, it takes respondents about nine minutes to complete the survey.
Data will be published every two weeks and made available by sector, state, and for the 25 largest metropolitan statistical areas. In November 2025, new questions regarding artificial intelligence were added to the survey; results from these questions are expected in 2026. The information gathered supports local, state, and federal officials in policy decisions and assists businesses in their economic planning.
There is no news release associated with this announcement; only a tip sheet was provided.
