Maine Small Business Statistics: 2026 Data and Trends

In Maine, small businesses are not a slice of the economy, they are the bulk of it: 160,215 firms in all, 99.2% of all Maine businesses, and they put 290,518 people to work, 54.5% of the workforce. That employment share came in above the national small business share in 2022, the SBA notes, and small firms did nearly all the state’s net hiring in the latest year, 98.5% of it.

Formation is running hot. New business applications reached a series high of about 14,186 in 2025, a third straight annual record, and the count now sits roughly 42% above 2019. Private employment grew 1.3% in 2024, and Maine’s economy crossed $100 billion for the first time.

Sources run from the federal statistical agencies to the Maine Revised Statutes, all linked at the close.

Where Maine’s 160,215 Small Firms Fit

The SBA’s 2025 Maine profile counts 160,215 small businesses, 99.2% of about 161,500 companies statewide and roughly 3,100 more than the 2024 edition listed.

• Of Maine’s employers, 34,292 small firms, 96.5%, carried a $14.6 billion payroll in 2022, 49.4% of the state’s total.
• The no-payroll side is large: 125,923 nonemployer businesses took in $6.98 billion in 2022, 88.6% of them sole proprietors.
• In BLS terms, Maine had 62,343 private establishments in 2024, or 65,438 counting government.
• Counted with solo ventures, the biggest small-firm industry is construction, 24,122 firms, three-quarters of them without employees; professional services follow at 19,350.

How Mainers Earn Their Living

Health care and social assistance dominates private employment here, 111,057 jobs at about 20.3% of the total, with 4,426 added in 2024, the biggest sector gain that year. Retail is next at 82,114, then accommodation and food services at 59,659, the state’s lowest-paying sizeable sector and the mark of a tourism economy. Manufacturing, 9.5% of private jobs, gave back the most ground, 1,444 positions. The biggest employers by name never appear in these files; only the industry cells do.

• Utilities pays the most, $122,043 on average, then management of companies ($108,766) and finance and insurance ($106,194).
• Professional and technical services average $104,931, well above the field.
• The floor is accommodation and food at $32,163, arts and recreation at $36,890, and retail at $39,751; the statewide private average is $63,280.

Much of Maine’s work never lands on a payroll at all. Construction is 95.1% small-business by employment, and the state’s lobster boats and woodlots show up mostly in the 125,923 nonemployer count rather than in the 718 payroll fishing jobs the wage files record.

The Things Maine Still Makes

Manufacturing is under a tenth of Maine’s private jobs, but it carries the state’s working identity, and here too the numbers are payroll cells, not company names. Ship and boat building stands out: 7,720 jobs at $73,941, up 2.2%, nearly 15% of all Maine manufacturing.

• Paper manufacturing employs 4,001 at $91,537 and is slipping (down 1.8%); the pulp-and-paper mills inside it, 2,365 jobs, fell 8.3% in a year.
• Food manufacturing runs 5,734 jobs, seafood preparation among them, and wood products another 4,273, down 6.8%.
• The payroll fishing cell is tiny, 718 jobs, because Maine’s harvesters are overwhelmingly self-employed rather than on a company’s books.

The Southern Coast and Two Northern Hubs

County figures cover private employers, and government is noted where it dominates; statewide, about a sixth of all Maine jobs are government. Cumberland County, home to Portland, is the anchor: 172,319 private jobs, about 31.4% of the state, on the top private pay among the five counties here, $72,350, with a finance cell paying $128,616.

• York County, on the south coast, is the tourism exception, where accommodation and food, not health care, is the largest private sector (10,952 jobs).
• Penobscot County, around Bangor, is the north’s medical hub, health care 26.4% of its private employment, and the quickest-growing of the five, up 2.2%.
• Kennebec County, holding Augusta, carries the highest government share of the five, 26.3%, the capital’s weight.
• Androscoggin County, the Lewiston-Auburn area, leans on manufacturing, 12.0% of its private jobs.

Aroostook and the Northern Farm Belt

Far to the north, Aroostook County shows a farm economy the coastal counties do not: 1,327 payroll agriculture jobs, more than any profiled county, on the lowest county pay of the six pulled, $49,719. The cells carry it, no operation named.

Maine’s private economy leans south and coastal, then to the Bangor and Augusta hubs; the five counties here hold about 70% of its private jobs, and the wide northern interior only a thin slice.

Maine’s Sector Winners and Losers in 2024

Private employment rose 1.3% in 2024, a net gain of 7,070 jobs. Which sectors did the hiring, and which shed, is a matter of record, not counsel.

• Management of companies led the percentage gains among sizeable sectors, up 6.7% (1,114 jobs).
• Health care put on the most jobs outright, 4,426, a 4.2% rise, and construction grew 3.8%.
• Educational services rose 3.5% and other services 3.2%.

The one real setback was manufacturing, down 1,444 jobs (2.7%), the steepest drop of any sector; agriculture, administrative services, finance, wholesale and transportation each eased by under two points.

Maine’s New-Business Filings Keep Climbing

Maine’s new-business applications have set a fresh record three years running. Counted monthly by the Census and totaled by year, they ran near 10,900 in 2018, reached 13,532 in 2021, and kept rising to about 14,084 in 2023, 14,118 in 2024 and 14,186 in 2025, roughly 42% above 2019. Read the yearly totals as close estimates, since they sum monthly data.

Beneath the filings, the turnover stayed positive but eased. Between March 2023 and March 2024, 6,444 establishments opened against 5,717 closures, a net 727, down from a net 1,556 the year before. What stands out is who did the hiring: of the 7,136 net new jobs that window, small businesses accounted for 7,026, or 98.5%, nearly all of it.

Maine’s FY2024 Lending and a Softer Export Year

Maine’s SBA programs pulled in different directions in fiscal 2024, and its export total came off the prior year.

7(a) Up, 504 and Micro Down

The 7(a) program had a good year: 371 loans worth $86.3 million, 7.5% more loans and 17.0% more dollars than fiscal 2023, on the 7(a) side alone.

• The 504 program went the other way, down to 48 loans and $31.7 million (off 17.2% in loans, 13.6% in dollars).
• Microloans also eased, to 92 loans, down 3.8% in dollars; all told the programs placed about 419 loans for $118.0 million, no single trend covering the mix.
• The southern coastal district, ME-01, carried more of the 7(a) volume, 224 loans and $50.3 million.
• Community Reinvestment Act reporting adds $464 million lent to Maine firms with revenues under $1 million in 2023, off 2022’s $497 million.

Half of Maine’s Export Value Is Small-Firm

Maine’s identified exporters shipped $2.6 billion in goods in 2023, down from $3.1 billion the year before, across 1,676 firms. What stands out is the small-firm weight: 1,390 small exporters accounted for $1.3 billion, more than half the value at 51.1%, though that share slipped from 55.4% in 2022.

A Rural, Homegrown Ownership Base

Maine’s ownership base is heavily rural: 59.3% of its classifiable businesses, 81,531 of them, sit in rural areas against 55,959 urban, in the 2022 Census surveys.

• Women own 42.3% of Maine businesses, 6,522 of the employer firms among them, with another 4,110 owned equally by women and men.
• Veterans own 7.5% of businesses against 5.5% of the workforce, 10,134 in all, 1,734 with staff.
• Minority ownership is small, in line with Maine’s demographics: Hispanic owners hold 1.3% of businesses, and White-owned firms number 147,080 (29,080 with employees), all 2022 figures.

Output, and the Visitors Behind Part of It

Maine’s economy passed $100 billion for the first time, reaching $102.8 billion in current dollars in 2025, up from $99.2 billion in 2024. In real terms the gain was slimmer, about 0.6% in 2025 after 3.0% in 2024, per federal accounts.

A Higher-Value Visitor in 2024

The Maine Office of Tourism’s 2024 figures describe fewer visitors spending more.

• 14.8 million visitors came in 2024, down 3.1%, but direct spending rose 1.8% to $9.23 billion, the average visitor spending about 5% more, the agency’s higher-value visitor.
• With indirect and induced effects added, the study puts total impact at $15.9 billion, down 2.8% on a change in its multiplier.
• Tourism supported 115,900 jobs and generated $1.41 billion in state and local tax revenue, per the report.

The Cost to Open, and the June Report After

Maine keeps its LLC paperwork cheap to start and modest to maintain: $175 to file, then $85 every June.

Registering an LLC in Maine

Maine calls the formation document a Certificate of Formation, not Articles of Organization, and filing it (form MLLC-6) costs $175. Reserving a name first is $20, held 120 days with no renewal, and expedited service adds $50 for next-day or $100 for same-day. For the order of steps, our step-by-step guide to starting an LLC in Maine covers the Secretary of State filings in order.

The recurring duty is the annual report, filed with the Secretary of State every year by June 1 for $85; a Maine LLC always owes it, with no exemption. The state also requires a registered agent at a physical Maine address, and our roundup of registered agent services in Maine spells out who can hold the role.

If handing off the paperwork sounds better, our picks for the best LLC services in Maine are ranked by price and turnaround.

What Owners Owe in Maine Income Tax

Most business income is taxed on the owner’s personal return, and Maine’s individual rate is graduated at 5.8%, 6.75% and a 7.15% top, on brackets the state re-indexes for inflation each year. Corporations run a separate graduated schedule topping at 8.93%.

• Sales tax is 5.5% statewide, with no county or city add-on anywhere in Maine.
• Prepared food is taxed at 8% and lodging at 9%, while grocery staples are exempt.
• The minimum wage is $14.65 in 2025 and $15.10 in 2026, indexed to the cost of living, with Portland and Rockland setting higher local floors; the tipped cash wage is $7.33 in 2025.

A hundred and seventy-five dollars to open, eighty-five each June to stay, a graduated income tax and not a cent of local sales tax: for an owner, Maine keeps the arithmetic short.

Maine Owners’ Most Common Questions

Sources

• The SBA Office of Advocacy’s 2025 Maine Small Business Profile supplies the counts, dynamics, ownership and export figures.
• Sector, subsector and county cells for 2024 are the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages.
• The Census Bureau’s Business Formation Statistics hold the monthly applications, and its Nonemployer Statistics the solo-business totals.
• Fiscal 2024 loan figures were compiled from the SBA’s 7(a) and 504 FOIA datasets.
• Both GDP measures belong to the Bureau of Economic Analysis regional accounts.
• The formation and annual-report fees appear on the Maine Secretary of State’s forms and Title 31 of the Maine Revised Statutes.
• Tax rates track Title 36 of the Maine Revised Statutes and Maine Revenue Services.
• The minimum wage is published by the Maine Department of Labor.
• The 2024 travel figures are the Maine Office of Tourism’s, from its economic-impact highlights.