The U.S. Census Bureau released new data products from the Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS) on March 26. The BTOS is an ongoing survey that measures business conditions and projections, including revenues, employees, hours, and inventories.
The BTOS covers all employer businesses in the United States except farms. It provides continuous and timely data for key economic measures every two weeks, offering insight into the state of the economy. By providing regular data with geographic and subsector detail, the survey helps capture the impact of events such as natural disasters or economic crises and assists in monitoring recovery efforts.
According to information from the Census Bureau, about 1.2 million businesses are included in the BTOS sample with biweekly data collection. These businesses are divided into six panels of roughly 200,000 each; every panel is asked to report once every twelve weeks over a year-long period. The average respondent spends approximately nine minutes completing the survey.
Data will be published every two weeks by sector, state, and for the twenty-five most populous metropolitan statistical areas. New questions focusing on artificial intelligence were added to the survey in November 2025; results from these questions are expected to be released in spring 2026.
Survey results provide local, state, and federal officials with real-time information that supports policymaking and decision-making processes. Businesses can also use this information when making their own economic decisions.
