Data field · Geographic area

Firm death count

Count of firms whose complete set of establishments exited during the stated period.

Who carries it ↓

1Data sources

1Providers

1Free to access

Sources that carry it

1 source

U.S. Census Bureau

Business Dynamics Statistics (BDS)

Annual aggregate measures of establishment openings and closings, firm startups and shutdowns, employment, and job creation/destruction. The current 2023 release covers 1978–2023 for the 50 states and DC through national, state, county, CBSA, metro/non-metro, NAICS 2017, firm/establishment age, and size tabulations. A coordinated 56-file Puerto Rico extension covers 1998–2023 at 2-digit NAICS and specified geographies but is available only as CSV. Release documentation pins stateside geography to the 2023 vintage; the generic API geography metadata still reports referenceDate 2022, so consumers must retain this documented metadata conflict. Measures are annual March-to-March, not individual-business records. Historical values can receive minor revisions, with recent births and job flows especially revision-sensitive.

Free APIFull file National US 26 fields

Questions it helps answer

Business age distribution Business formation and closure trends Business population counts Establishment stock change trends Business economic scale distribution

Need Firm death count at scale?

We compare every source that carries it on your own records — fill rate, freshness, definition — and bring the winner into production for you.