The U.S. Census Bureau has released new data from the Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS), which tracks business conditions and projections across the country. The BTOS is designed to complement other economic surveys by collecting information on revenues, employees, hours worked, and inventories.
The survey covers all employer businesses in the United States except for farms. It provides continuous and timely updates every two weeks on key economic indicators, with detailed breakdowns by geography and industry subsector. This allows the BTOS to reflect how events such as natural disasters or economic crises affect businesses and helps monitor recovery efforts.
Approximately 1.2 million businesses are included in the BTOS sample, divided into six panels of about 200,000 each. Each panel is surveyed every 12 weeks over a year. According to the Census Bureau, it takes respondents an average of nine minutes to complete the survey.
Data from BTOS will be published biweekly and made available by sector, state, and for the 25 largest metropolitan areas in the country. New questions related to artificial intelligence were added on November 17, 2025; results from these questions are expected in Spring 2026. The survey’s findings provide local, state, and federal officials with real-time data for policymaking while also helping businesses make informed decisions.
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