In January, the business opening rate dropped 0.3 percentage points to 4.8% after holding steady at 5.1% over the previous two months. The opening rate was 0.1 percentage points above its 2015-to-2019 historical average. The business closure rate contracted 0.2 percentage points to 4.9% in January 2025, following a 0.1 percentage point increase in the previous month. In January, the closure rate was 0.3 percentage points above its historical average of 4.6%.
In January, the number of active businesses edged down 0.1% (-993 businesses) as the number of closures was a little higher than that of openings. In the same month, payroll employment grew 0.1%, real gross domestic product increased by 0.4% and business insolvency filings grew from 392 in December to 418 in January. From December to January, business openings dropped in all sectors. The decline in business sector openings was led by construction (-874 business openings compared with December; 26.7% of the decrease in business sector openings) and accommodation and food services (-689; 21.0% of the decrease). Professional, scientific and technical services (-437) posted the third largest decline in business openings and contributed 13.3% to the decrease in business sector openings.
Business closures dropped or changed little in all sectors in January. Retail trade (-137 business closures compared with December; 15.4% of the decrease in business sector closures) and professional, scientific and technical services (-133; 14.9% of the decrease) drove the decline, followed by construction (-125; 14.0% of the decrease) and transportation and warehousing (-120; 13.5% of the decrease).
Chart 1: Monthly business openings and closures as a percentage of active businesses, business sector, January 2023 to January 2025, seasonally adjusted data
Source: Table 33-10-0270-01.
Chart 2: Percent contribution of sectors to the increase in both openings and closures, December 2024 to January 2025, seasonally adjusted data
Description - Chart 2
Source: Table 33-10-0270-01.
Note to readers
With each release, data for the preceding month are revised as additional information becomes available. This may also involve minor revisions to historical data due to seasonal adjustment. Users are encouraged to use the most up-to-date data available for each month.
Seasonal adjustment is applied separately to each sector to account for unique patterns, which can lead to discrepancies between business sector figures and the sum of sector-specific ones.
Percentages in Chart 2 represent the contribution of each sector to the business sector's overall variation. The percentage is negative when the direction of the sector's variation is different from that of the overall variation, and it is positive when sectoral and overall variation are in the same direction.
More precisely, a sector's contribution is negative if it shows a decrease in business openings (or closures), while the total number of business openings (or closures) has increased. Similarly, a sector's contribution is negative if it shows an increase in business openings (or closures), while the total number of business openings (or closures) has fallen.
For more information on the data presented in this release, see the Monthly Business Openings and Closures (5401) survey page.
Reference
Data tables: 33-10-0270-01 and 33-10-0270-01.
- Note: some data tables may best be viewed on desktop.
Definitions, data sources and methods: survey number 5401.
Previous release: Monthly estimates of business openings and closures, December 2024.
Contact information
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