The U.S. Census Bureau has released new data from the Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS), which measures ongoing business conditions and projections across the United States. The BTOS covers multiunit and multilocation businesses, collecting information that complements other economic surveys by focusing on areas such as revenues, employees, hours worked, and inventories.
This survey represents all employer businesses in the country except farms. It provides regular updates on key economic indicators every two weeks, offering detailed geographic and industry breakdowns. The continuous collection of data helps monitor how events like natural disasters or economic crises affect businesses and supports efforts to track recovery.
The BTOS uses a sample of about 1.2 million businesses for biweekly data collection. These are divided into six panels of roughly 200,000 cases each, with each panel reporting every 12 weeks over the course of a year. According to the Census Bureau, it takes an average respondent about nine minutes to complete the survey.
Data from the BTOS will be published every two weeks with breakdowns by sector, state, and for the 25 largest metropolitan statistical areas in the U.S. In November 2025, questions related to artificial intelligence were added to the survey; results from these questions are expected to be available in 2026. Local, state, and federal officials use this real-time data for policy decisions while businesses use it for their own planning.
There is no separate news release associated with this announcement; only a tip sheet was provided.
