The U.S. Census Bureau released new data products from the Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS) on March 26. The survey measures business conditions and projections, offering ongoing insights into key economic indicators such as revenues, employees, hours, and inventories.
The BTOS is designed to represent all employer businesses in the United States economy except for farms. It provides continuous and timely data every two weeks with geographic and subsector detail. This allows the survey to capture the effects of events like natural disasters or economic crises while also supporting efforts to monitor recovery.
According to the Census Bureau, approximately 1.2 million businesses are included in the BTOS sample through biweekly data collection. These selected businesses are divided into six panels of about 200,000 each; each panel is asked to report every twelve weeks over a year-long period. The agency estimates that it takes an average respondent around nine minutes to complete the survey.
BTOS results will be made available by sector, state, and for the twenty-five most populous metropolitan statistical areas on a biweekly basis. New questions focused on artificial intelligence were added in November 2025, with their results expected in spring 2026.
The information gathered by BTOS supports local, state, and federal officials with real-time data for policymaking purposes while also helping businesses make informed economic decisions.
