Construction first.
About 16,000 Minnesota construction companies have fewer than 20 employees, the most of any industry here, and about 41,000 more construction businesses run with no payroll. Your own press already reaches this trade.
Enquirer Consulting Group
Promoting Me Buyer Map
Prepared for Shelly Peterson | Promoting Me | October 2026
As of Oct 11, 2026. Counts from federal business statistics for Minnesota, described in the notes at the foot
This page counts, in Minnesota, the people your site says you build for. New founders, freelancers and the self-employed, and small companies that need a brand, a website and a clear story. Every count comes from public federal data, and nothing here says who already works with Promoting Me.
Minnesota applications for a new business in 2025
74,000
Filings for a new federal employer ID by a business based in the state.
Of those, the ones the Census marks as likely to hire
22,000
About 30 in every 100.
Minnesota businesses run with no payroll
440,000
Freelancers, sole owners and side businesses, 2022.
Minnesota companies with fewer than 20 employees
100,000
Every industry, 2022.
New businesses, year by year
Applications for a new business in Minnesota, as filed, by year.
| Year | Applications | Likely to hire |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 65,000 | 23,000 |
| 2022 | 61,000 | 21,000 |
| 2023 | 69,000 | 23,000 |
| 2024 | 68,000 | 22,000 |
| 2025 | 74,000 | 22,000 |
| 2026, January to August | 54,000 | 14,000 |
Small employers by industry
Minnesota companies with fewer than 20 employees, 2022, in the industries with the most of them.
| Industry | Under 5 employees | 5 to 9 | 10 to 19 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Construction | 13,000 | 2,300 | 1,200 |
| Personal, repair and other services | 9,000 | 3,100 | 1,500 |
| Professional, scientific and technical services | 11,000 | 1,600 | 1,000 |
| Retail | 5,500 | 2,300 | 1,500 |
| Health care and social assistance | 5,400 | 2,000 | 1,700 |
| Restaurants and lodging | 3,000 | 1,600 | 1,900 |
| Administrative and support services | 4,400 | 960 | 610 |
| Real estate | 5,200 | 460 | 200 |
| Finance and insurance | 4,000 | 760 | 330 |
| Every industry | 72,000 | 18,000 | 13,000 |
Freelancers and the self-employed by industry
Minnesota businesses with no payroll, 2022, in the industries with the most of them.
| Industry | Businesses |
|---|---|
| Professional, scientific and technical services | 64,000 |
| Transportation and delivery | 62,000 |
| Real estate | 48,000 |
| Construction | 41,000 |
| Personal, repair and other services | 38,000 |
| Retail | 36,000 |
| Arts, entertainment and recreation | 34,000 |
| Administrative and support services | 30,000 |
| Health care and social assistance | 30,000 |
| Every industry | 440,000 |
Who signs off
Who usually buys a brand, a website or coaching at each kind of business. At a small company one person often holds all of it.
| Who | What they usually own |
|---|---|
| Founder of a new business | The first logo, site, card and profile, often bought together. |
| Freelancer or sole owner | Their own profile, LinkedIn presence and the story they tell clients. |
| Owner of a company under 20 people | The brand, the website and where the marketing money goes. |
| Office or marketing manager | Social posts, email and the site week to week, at 10 to 19 people. |
What no public count reaches
Three things this page cannot size from public data, said in words rather than shown as numbers.
Professionals changing jobs. Your resume, LinkedIn and career coaching serve people, not businesses, and no federal table counts Minnesotans looking for that help.
Certified diverse and women owned firms. Those lists are kept by each certifying body, not in the federal business counts used here, so they are found by name in the named version.
Who already has a brand. A count of businesses says nothing about whose logo or site is out of date. That is read one business at a time.
Three openings
Where the counts point.
A record year for new businesses.
Minnesotans filed about 74,000 applications for a new business in 2025, the most in any full year since 2005, and this year is running ahead of that. Each one needs a name, a logo and a site in its first months.
Professional services.
The largest group with no payroll is professional services, about 64,000 consultants, designers, accountants and the like, with about 14,000 more professional firms under 20 employees.
Denominators, definitions and sources
- New businesses are applications for an employer identification number with a Minnesota business address, from the Census Bureau's Business Formation Statistics, monthly and not seasonally adjusted, summed by year; the latest month in the release is August 2026. Likely to hire is the Census series of high propensity applications, the ones whose filing details point to a business that will have a payroll. An application is not a business that opened.
- Small employers are employer firms with at least one location in Minnesota, from the Census Bureau's Statistics of US Businesses, 2022, by the employment of the whole firm. A firm is every location under one owner. Sectors: 23 construction; 81 other services; 54 professional, scientific and technical services; 44 and 45 retail trade; 62 health care and social assistance; 72 accommodation and food services; 56 administrative and support and waste management; 53 real estate and rental and leasing; 52 finance and insurance; 48 and 49 transportation and warehousing; 71 arts, entertainment and recreation.
- Businesses with no payroll are Minnesota nonemployer establishments, all legal forms, from the Census Bureau's Nonemployer Statistics, 2022, which counts businesses with no paid employees that file a federal business tax return. Sectors as above.
- Built from public federal data, counts banded deliberately. Figures of 100 and over are rounded to two significant figures, figures from 10 to 99 to the nearest ten, and figures below 10 are shown as under 10.
The named version of this page, the actual businesses inside a row, is built one row at a time. If you want to walk through a row together, pick a time at cal.com/ecg. Prepared by Paul Smaldone, paul@enquirerconsulting.com.
Enquirer Consulting Group | enquirerconsulting.com