Oregon Small Business Statistics: 2026 Facts and Figures

No general sales tax, three regional minimum wages, and 417,747 small businesses that employ more than half the state’s workers: that is Oregon’s small business landscape in 2026.

Those small firms are 99.4% of every company operating here, and 889,528 Oregonians work for one. Counting employers of every size, the state holds about 420,000 businesses. The recent trend cuts two ways: new business applications posted the highest yearly total in the monthly Census series back to 2018 (about 62,652 in 2025), while private employment measured by the federal wage census slipped 0.1% in 2024.

Everything below comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Economic Analysis or an Oregon state agency, with each source linked at the end.

Counting Oregon’s Small Businesses in 2026

The core numbers come from the latest SBA state profile for Oregon and the Census Bureau’s 2022 business files. The 2024 profile counted 409,958 small businesses; the current one lists 417,747, a gain of about 7,800 in a year.

Solo operations run deep in this state. Of the total, 320,778 are nonemployer businesses that earned $18.3 billion in receipts in 2022, while the 96,969 small firms with staff account for 97.4% of Oregon employers and paid $46.5 billion in wages, 44.7% of the state’s payroll.

• Oregon holds 417,747 small businesses, 99.4% of all businesses in the state.
• They employ 889,528 people, which is 53.4% of Oregon’s workers, so a majority of the state’s payrolls run through a small firm.

The Wage Ladder in Oregon

The rungs sit far apart. All 2024 figures below cover every private employer in the state, not small firms alone.

• Oregon’s private employers paid an average of $69,891 in 2024.
• Management of companies sits at the top, $144,998 a year, with information close behind at $141,182, utilities at $132,444, finance and insurance at $107,581, and professional services at $106,657.
• The lowest rungs: accommodation and food services at $29,792, arts and recreation at $37,912, retail at $41,975.

County lines redraw the ladder again: Washington County leads at $91,473, ahead of Multnomah’s $77,892, while Lane County averages $56,490.

Care, Crops and Chips: Oregon’s Industry Lineup

Health care leads on jobs, small offices lead on establishments, and farm country still carries real weight in the 2024 federal wage census. Health care and social assistance is the largest private employer at 300,603 jobs; retail trade follows with 203,454, though it shed 2.1% in 2024, and accommodation and food services employs 178,123. Manufacturing brings 186,012 jobs at an average $90,354, well above the all-industry average.

• Professional, scientific and technical services fields the most establishments, 26,628, with construction next at 18,009.
• Farming, forestry and fishing employ 52,920 Oregonians, a sizable slice of the state’s job base.
• Across firms of every size including solo ventures, professional services counts 65,344 small firms, then real estate (42,626) and construction (37,655).

Health Care Carried Oregon’s 2024 Job Growth

Strip the 2024 numbers down to sector level and one storyline dominates. Health care added 16,806 jobs, a 5.9% gain and by far the largest of any sector; arts and recreation rose 4.0%, with smaller gains for other services (+1.5%) and agriculture (+1.3%).

Almost everything else gave ground: management of companies (-3.3%), administrative and waste services (-2.8%), retail (-2.1%), manufacturing (-2.0%). Net the whole thing out and private employment slipped 0.1%, 1,160 fewer jobs, while total employment including government rose 0.3%. Without the hospitals and clinics, Oregon’s 2024 would have looked considerably worse.

A County Tour of Oregon Business

One reading note: these county totals take in every private employer, from a one-desk agency to the largest campus. Multnomah County, Portland’s core, counts 40,224 establishments and 422,149 private jobs, about 24.8% of the state, but it had the weakest 2024 of the five counties profiled here: employment fell 2.2%, with professional services down 5.5%.

• Washington County, the Hillsboro and Beaverton semiconductor corridor, pays best: 284,072 jobs at $91,473 on average.
• Manufacturing is that county’s largest sector, with 51,959 jobs at an average $143,325, about 18.3% of its private employment.
• With Clackamas added, the Portland tri-county area holds about 50.7% of Oregon’s private jobs.
• Lane County around Eugene employs 131,436; Deschutes County around Bend grew fastest of the five, up 1.7% in 2024.

The quiet surprise on this map: of the five counties profiled here, the priciest payrolls sit not in Portland proper but one county to the west, where the chip fabs are.

Business Applications in Oregon: 2018 to 2025

Yearly totals below are sums of monthly Census figures, close approximations rather than exact counts, and they climb with only short pauses along the way: about 41,389 applications in 2018, 49,857 in 2021, 55,978 in 2023, 59,813 in 2024, and then 62,652 in 2025, up 4.7% and higher than any other year in the series.

• The churn told a cooler story in its most recent window: from March 2023 to March 2024, 18,784 establishments opened and 19,152 closed across businesses of every size (temporary closures and reopenings included).
• That window cost the state 7,746 jobs on net, but small businesses lost only 548, holding up far better than the total; the year before, the same measure was positive by 21,525 jobs.

A filing is a plan, and the churn window records what actually happened. In Oregon right now, the plans are running ahead of the outcomes.

Borrowed Money and Foreign Sales in Oregon

More Loans, Smaller Checks

Fiscal 2024 brought Oregon many more SBA approvals and noticeably less SBA money. Lenders approved 1,057 7(a) loans worth $350.7 million; the 7(a) count rose about 38.5% from fiscal 2023 while 7(a) dollars fell about 15.5%. Adding 49 504 loans ($51.3 million) puts the combined figure near 1,106 loans and $402.0 million, with 113 microloans contributing about $1.3 million more.

• CRA-reporting banks issued $762.9 million in new loans to Oregon firms with revenues under $1 million in 2023.

A Smaller Year for Oregon Exports

Foreign sales contracted in the latest data, and the small-firm share of them stayed modest. Of the 5,475 Oregon firms that exported goods in 2023, small businesses made up 4,763, or 87.0%, yet their $5.0 billion in shipments was just 18.4% of the $26.9 billion total. The state’s identified exports also fell hard year over year, from $33.6 billion in 2022.

Ownership Patterns Across Oregon

The ownership figures pair employer firms (2022 Census business survey) with totals that fold in solo businesses.

• Women own 48.5% of Oregon businesses and hold 46.8% of jobs; 20,211 employer firms are female-owned, with 14,609 more owned equally by women and men.
• Veterans own 5.9%: about 20,005 businesses in all, 4,505 of them employers.
• Hispanic entrepreneurs own 8.8% of businesses (33,476 in total, 5,476 employer firms); Asian-owned businesses number 27,745 and Black-owned 11,776.
• The rural share is real but minority: 66,736 rural businesses versus 306,900 urban ones.

Oregon GDP, Plus What Travelers Leave Behind

The macro picture grew modestly, with travel metrics running slightly ahead of it. The state’s output totaled $342.85 billion in 2025; a year earlier it stood at $330.25 billion, and stripped of inflation that is real growth of about 1.0%, per federal economic accounts.

Travel Oregon’s 2025 Scorecard

Tourism is the freshest data on this page: the state’s 2025 travel impact report is already out.

• Travelers spent $14.6 billion in Oregon in 2025, up 1.3% from $14.4 billion the year before.
• Travel supported 122,920 jobs (1,700 more than in 2024) and $5.0 billion in earnings.
• State and local governments collected $741 million in travel-generated taxes, up 2.6% from $722 million.
• Visitors logged 30.2 million overnight trips and 99.0 million person-nights; the Portland region drew about 38% of statewide travel spending.

Oregon’s Tax Setup: No Sales Tax, but Read the Fine Print

Filing Fees at the Oregon Secretary of State

Oregon prices its business paperwork in round numbers.

• Articles of Organization for an Oregon LLC cost $100, and the annual report costs $100 as well.
• A foreign LLC pays $275 to register and $275 for each yearly renewal; an assumed business name runs $50 every two years, and a corporation files at the same $100/$100 pair as an LLC.
• State law requires an Oregon registered agent with a street address in the state for every registered entity.

If you are setting up, we cover how to start an LLC in Oregon step by step.

What Oregon Collects Instead of Sales Tax

Skipping a sales tax does not mean skipping taxes; Oregon simply collects differently.

• Oregon levies no general sales or use tax, per the Department of Revenue; vehicle purchase taxes are the narrow exception.
• Personal income tax is progressive at 4.75%, 6.75%, 8.75% and 9.9% (2025 rate charts), with the top rate starting above $125,000 for single filers and $250,000 for joint filers; most sole proprietors, LLC members and S corporation shareholders pay these personal rates on business income.
• Corporations pay excise tax at 6.6% on Oregon taxable income up to $1 million and 7.6% above that (plus $66,000); S corporations owe a $150 minimum, and a minimum tax applies to C corporations as well.
• The Corporate Activity Tax adds $250 plus 0.57% of Oregon commercial activity above $1 million; businesses at or below $750,000 of activity are fully excluded.
• Partnerships and S corporations can elect the pass-through entity tax at 9% on the first $250,000 of distributive proceeds and 9.9% beyond, and employers withhold a 0.1% statewide transit tax from wages.
• From July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027, the minimum wage is $16.80 in the Portland metro area, $15.55 standard, and $14.55 in non-urban counties, reset each July per the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries.

Frequently Asked: Small Business in Oregon

Sources

• Counts, churn, demographics, lending context and export data trace to the SBA Office of Advocacy, Oregon 2025 Small Business Profile.
• All 2024 wage, employment and establishment detail sits in the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages.
• Application trends and solo-business figures rely on the Census Bureau’s Business Formation Statistics together with its Nonemployer Statistics.
• The fiscal 2024 approval totals come out of U.S. Small Business Administration loan program data.
• Output and growth figures belong to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Regional Economic Accounts.
• The $100 filing and renewal fees appear on the Oregon Secretary of State Business Registry fee schedule.
• Tax rules on this page, from the absence of a sales tax to the CAT, are set out by the Oregon Department of Revenue.
• Tourism spending, jobs and tax figures come from Travel Oregon’s economic impact research.