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 United States. The survey includes information from multiunit and multilocation businesses, providing ongoing data that complements other economic surveys by collecting details on revenues, employees, hours worked, and inventories.
The BTOS covers all employer businesses in the country except for farms. It aims to provide timely and continuous data every two weeks, offering detailed geographic and industry breakdowns. This approach allows the survey to capture the effects of events such as natural disasters or economic crises and helps monitor recovery efforts.
Approximately 1.2 million businesses are included in the BTOS sample, with biweekly data collection. The selected businesses are divided into six panels of about 200,000 each; each panel is surveyed every 12 weeks over a year. According to the Census Bureau, completing the survey takes an average respondent about nine minutes.
Data from BTOS will be released every two weeks and will be available by sector, state, and for the 25 largest metropolitan statistical areas. In November 2025, new questions on artificial intelligence were added to the survey; results from these questions are expected to be released in 2026. The findings provide local, state, and federal officials with real-time information to support policymaking decisions. Businesses can also use this information for their own economic planning.
There is no news release associated with this announcement; it was issued as a tip sheet only.
