In 2023, there were 1,197,980 active enterprises in Canada with one or more employees, and two-thirds had four employees or fewer. There were 83,770 births of enterprises in 2023 and 88,040 deaths of enterprises in 2022.
These indicators are part of the Entrepreneurship Indicators Database program, which is now available upon request for the 2023 reference period. The Entrepreneurship Indicators Database program provides data that describe the entrepreneurial dynamics of Canadian enterprises.
Indicators include the number of active enterprises, the number of enterprise births and deaths and their corresponding jobs, the survival of newly created enterprises, and the number of high-growth enterprises and gazelles (see Note to readers). Active enterprises include all enterprises with at least one employee.
The majority of enterprise births and deaths involve small businesses
Among all new employer-enterprises established in 2023, more than four in five (84.2%) were small enterprises, defined in this release as enterprises with one to four employees. The professional, scientific and technical services sector had the most enterprise births, accounting for 17.0% of all births of active enterprises in 2023.
Enterprises deaths were highest among small enterprises. Of all enterprises that died in 2022, 84.2% were small enterprises. Most of the enterprise deaths were in the professional, scientific and technical services sector, which accounted for 17.4% of all deaths.
Most enterprises born in 2022 survived their first year
Among new enterprises that were born in 2022 with at least one employee, the survival rate was 83.1% in 2023. Among those that were born in 2021, more than two-thirds (68.0%) were still active in 2023. Of the 54,090 enterprises that survived from 2021 to 2023, 79.4% were small enterprises.
Accommodation and food services led all sectors in the number of high-growth enterprises
In 2023, Canada had 13,130 high-growth enterprises by employment and 29,370 high-growth enterprises by revenue. These represented 5.7% and 12.9%, respectively, of the number of active enterprises with 10 or more employees. Enterprises in the accommodation and food services sector (18.6%) represented the largest proportion of high-growth enterprises by revenue, followed by construction (14.2%) and manufacturing (10.7%).
Of all high-growth enterprises by employment in 2023, the accommodation and food services sector (21.7%) represented the largest proportion of high-growth enterprises, followed by construction (11.6%) and professional, scientific and technical services (10.6%).
Note to readers
Entrepreneurship indicators are produced nationally, by province and territory, by sector, and by enterprise size.
The Entrepreneurship Indicators Database contains an up-to-date and unduplicated count of enterprises in Canada, based on the Statistics Canada's Business Register and on concepts and definitions from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Because year-over-year variations in entrepreneurship indicators or employee counts may represent changes in methodology in the source data rather than economic changes, comparisons with previous releases should be made with caution.
Data access
The tables are available upon request.
The birth of an employer enterprise is a new enterprise that has at least one employee in the birth year or an enterprise that was present before the year in consideration, but below the threshold of one employee. Reactivations are excluded from the population of employer enterprise births. Births do not include entries into the population as a result of a merger, break-up, split-off or restructuring of a set of enterprises.
The death of an employer enterprise is an enterprise with at least one employee in the year of the death that stops being present or an enterprise that moves below the threshold of one employee for at least two years. Deaths do not include exits from the population as a result of mergers, break-ups, dissolutions or restructuring, and enterprises that are reactivated in the next two years are excluded from the population of enterprise deaths.
High-growth enterprises, by employment (or revenue), are enterprises with an average annual growth in the number of employees (or revenue) greater than 20% over a three-year period and with at least 10 employees at the beginning of the observation period.
Gazelles represent the youngest of high-growth enterprises (i.e., are up to 5 years old).
Contact information
For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; infostats@statcan.gc.ca) or Media Relations (statcan.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.statcan@statcan.gc.ca).