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 survey covers all employer businesses in the United States except farms, and now includes information for companies with multiple locations.
According to the Census Bureau, BTOS provides ongoing data every two weeks on economic measures such as revenues, employees, hours worked, and inventories. The survey is designed to capture changes in the economy at both geographic and industry levels, allowing it to reflect impacts from events like natural disasters or economic downturns. This information can help monitor recovery efforts after such events.
About 1.2 million businesses are included in the BTOS sample, with data collected biweekly. These businesses are divided into six panels of roughly 200,000 each; each panel reports once every 12 weeks over a year. The agency estimates that it takes respondents about nine minutes to complete the survey.
Survey results will be made available by sector, state, and for the 25 largest metropolitan statistical areas. In November 2025, new questions related to artificial intelligence were added; findings from these questions are expected to be published in 2026.
The Census Bureau stated: “BTOS provides insight into the state of the economy by providing continuous, timely data for key economic measures every two weeks. By providing continuous data with geographic and subsector detail, BTOS captures the impact of events like natural disasters and economic crises and assists in monitoring recovery efforts.”
Officials at various government levels use this real-time data to inform policy decisions while businesses rely on it for their own planning purposes.
There was no separate news release associated with this announcement; only a tip sheet was provided.
