The Survey of Business Owners (SBO) provides the only comprehensive, regularly collected source of information on selected economic and demographic characteristics for businesses and business owners by gender, ethnicity, race, and veteran status.

The SBO covers both firms with paid employees and firms with no paid employees. The SBO is conducted on a company or firm basis rather than an establishment basis. Data have been collected every 5 years since 1972, for years ending in "2" and "7" as part of the economic census.

To see previously published SBO statistics, please visit our Data page.

The Survey of Business Owners is not currently in data collection.

To help you prepare for online reporting, click on the appropriate forms and instructions below.

(All forms are in Adobe PDF file format and are for informational purposes only)

Title 13, United States Code (U.S.C.), Sections 131 and 193, authorizes this collection. Sections 224 and 225 require your response.

Title 13, United States Code, Section 9, requires the Census Bureau to keep your information CONFIDENTIAL and can use your responses only to produce statistics.  

The Census Bureau is not permitted to publicly release your responses in a way that could identify your business, organization, or institution.  Per the Federal Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2015, your data are protected from cybersecurity risks through screening of the systems that transmit your data. 

Below are a few common items you can use to verify the legitimacy of this survey:

1. Ensure the Web address provided in the letter is a "census.gov" domain.
2. Reporting information is provided in the letter.
3. On the log-in screen, a warning message should be present stating the respondent is accessing a U.S. Government computer.
4. Once in the survey, the upper right corner of the page should display the OMB eight-digit number and expiration date. This number indicates that the OMB has approved the survey and has confirmed there is a need to collect the information.
5. Once in the survey, the bottom of the log-in screen should have a link for the “Burden Statement” which also contains the OMB eight-digit number.