---
title: Americans Filed a Record 3.2 Million Business Applications in the First Half of 2026
description: Americans filed 3,232,301 business applications from January to June 2026, a first-half record, though the subset most likely to hire rose just 1.7 percent.
author: Darie Nani (Editor-in-Chief)
date: 2026-08-06T18:01:55.334Z
updated: 2026-08-06T18:01:55.345Z
canonical: https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/record-us-business-applications-first-half-2026
image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/business-formation-record-illustration-111821.webp
categories: Startups
content_type: News
region: United States
publication: Sovereign Magazine
schema_type: Article
---

Americans filed 3,232,301 applications to start a business in the first half of 2026, the highest first-half total in Census Bureau records going back to 2005. The figure landed the same week Harley Finkelstein, president of Shopify, told CNBC that artificial intelligence is opening what he called a golden age of entrepreneurship, and that it is making businesses easier to start and grow.

## Applications Rose 12 Percent and Passed the 2021 Record

The Census Bureau counts a business application each time someone applies for an Employer Identification Number, and publishes the monthly totals through its [Business Formation Statistics program](https://www.census.gov/econ/bfs/index.html). The January to June total is up from 2,883,815 in the same period of 2025, an increase of about 12 percent, and it passes the previous first-half record of 3,087,560 set in 2021, during the pandemic startup surge. Against the first half of 2019, when Americans filed 1,915,200 applications, this year's total is about 69 percent higher.

## Shopify Reported $115.6 Billion of Merchant Sales in the Quarter

Shopify reported second-quarter results the same week, for the three months to June 30. Merchants sold $115.6 billion of goods through the platform, against $87.8 billion a year earlier, and revenue rose 34 percent to $3.6 billion. Free cash flow reached $654 million, an 18 percent margin. The company says millions of businesses in more than 175 countries use it.

"This was a monster quarter: more than 30% growth in GMV AND revenue AND gross profit AND free cash flow," Finkelstein said of the results.

> "We power every kind of business, and with AI, we're expanding what's possible for all of them."
> — Harley Finkelstein, President of Shopify

## The Applications Most Likely to Hire Barely Moved

The Census Bureau also publishes a narrower count, high-propensity business applications, covering the ones whose characteristics suggest they will become a business with employees. That total was 930,360 in the first half of 2026, against 914,886 a year earlier, a rise of about 1.7 percent. It sits below the first-half high of 1,051,894 in 2021 and below the 999,454 filed in the first half of 2023.

Part of that gap is definitional. From the January 2026 release, the Census Bureau stopped counting applications associated with internet sales in the high-propensity series, having reassessed which application characteristics actually predict that a business goes on to hire. It restated the whole series on the new basis, so the years compare cleanly with each other, but the change removes from the narrow count exactly the kind of online-selling application an e-commerce boom produces.

The Census Bureau does not attribute either trend to any single platform or technology. An application is also only a first filing: fewer than a third of this year's are even in the group it judges likely to hire.

## FAQ

**Q: What is a business application in Census data?**
An application for an Employer Identification Number. The Census Bureau counts them and publishes monthly totals as part of its Business Formation Statistics, which it runs through its Center for Economic Studies with economists from the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, the University of Maryland and the University of Notre Dame.

**Q: What does high-propensity mean?**
It is the Census Bureau's subset of applications judged most likely to become a business with employees, based on characteristics of the application itself. Since the January 2026 release, applications tied to internet sales are left out of that subset.

**Q: Are more Americans starting businesses than before the pandemic?**
Far more. The first half of 2026 produced 3,232,301 applications against 1,915,200 in the first half of 2019 and 1,920,329 in the first half of 2018.

**Q: Do most business applications lead to a business with employees?**
No. The high-propensity subset came to 930,360 in the first half of 2026, under a third of all applications filed in the period, and an application is only the first step even within that group.