10,376 New Businesses Across 4 Metros: USTA Index

The US Tech Automations New-Business Formation Index is a census of new business registrations captured from open municipal datasets. On July 13, 2026, the business-formation clock sealed its count of the new-filing stream across four tracked metros and published it without alteration. Every figure below is a verbatim count of registrations the clock actually observed.

Across those four metros, the index sealed 10,376 distinct new business registrations. This is a census of the tracked municipal datasets only — Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, and San Francisco — and it is not, and must never be read as, a national or statewide new-business total.

New businesses do not announce themselves — but their first legal footprint is a public filing.

The Census in One Number

On the sealed snapshot, 10,376 new business registrations had been captured across 4 metros, spanning first observations as far back as March 28, 2026. The collection window for this edition runs from June 26, 2026 to July 13, 2026, and each registration is counted once, at the moment it was first seen.

10,376 new business registrations were captured across 4 metros on July 13, 2026.

The number is deliberately literal. It is not a projection of how many businesses "really" formed, nor an attempt to model the ones these datasets miss. It is a count of distinct records that exist in four public feeds — a floor you can stand on, not an estimate you have to trust.

What This Index Is — and Is Not

New business registrations (the new-filing stream, excluding renewals) captured from the open municipal business-license datasets of Chicago, IL, Los Angeles, CA, New York City, NY, San Francisco, CA by the US Tech Automations business-formation clock between June 26, 2026 and July 13, 2026. This is a census of those four municipal datasets, not of every business formed in the United States or in any single state.

This is a census of four municipal datasets, not a national formation total.

Each city runs its own registration system with its own rules, so the four feeds are not perfectly comparable. Los Angeles and San Francisco publish a NAICS industry code; Chicago and New York City instead publish a free-text description of the licensed activity. We report NAICS sectors and free-text activities separately, and never blend the two into a single "sector."

Where the Formations Are

Los Angeles supplies the largest share of registrations, followed by San Francisco and Chicago. New York City's public feed is both smaller and less current, which the numbers below make plain.

Los Angeles alone accounts for 4,639 of the tracked registrations.

The New York City line deserves a caveat rather than a footnote: its freshest captured filing is dated April 16, 2026, while the other three feeds run current to within days of the snapshot. So the 303 figure reflects a dataset that updates on a slower cadence, not a city that stopped forming businesses. Read New York City as under-covered here, not quiet.

Los Angeles and San Francisco also carry the bulk of the coded industry detail, because both publish a NAICS code — Los Angeles on 97.1% of its records and San Francisco on 66.3%. Chicago's 2,311 registrations and New York City's 303 arrive as free-text activity instead, which is why the sector tables that follow lean on the two California metros for their industry breakdown.

What They're Starting

For the records that carry a NAICS code, Construction is the single largest sector, and the top of the list is dominated by hands-on, local trades and services rather than tech. These shares are computed over the NAICS-coded records only.

Construction leads the sector mix with 1,103 registrations and a 16.8% share.

Construction, Retail Trade, and Accommodation & Food Services together make up the front of the distribution — the trades, storefronts, and kitchens that anchor a local economy. Professional, Scientific & Technical Services follows at 767 registrations and an 11.7% share, the clearest office-based category in the top tier. Below it, Other Services at 619 and Health Care & Social Assistance at 428 fill out the middle of the table, a reminder that the long tail here is still made up of hands-on local businesses rather than anything exotic.

The Recent 90-Day View

Narrowing to the recent 90-day window — first observations on or after April 14, 2026 — leaves 7,902 registrations. The sector ordering barely changes, which is itself a finding: the mix of what people are starting is stable across the window.

In the recent 90-day window, 7,902 registrations were captured.

Construction actually rises in the recent slice, to a 17.7% share, hinting that trade formations are running slightly hotter in the freshest data. But this index makes no trend claim: it is a cross-sectional census, the first sealed edition, with no prior comparison baked in.

If you are budgeting the automation that serves these new businesses, the companion US AI Price Index applies the same sealed-snapshot discipline to live model pricing — a useful counterpart when the cost side of an automation matters as much as the demand side this formation data measures.

Reading the Coverage Honestly

Two coverage numbers keep the reader honest. NAICS coverage across the cumulative set is 63.4% — barely under two-thirds of registrations carry an industry code, so every sector share above describes the coded subset, not all 10,376. And geographic coverage, the share of filings we can place to a point, sits at 19.5%.

The 19.5% geographic figure is the strictest number in this report, and we lead with it on purpose. It means fewer than one in five registrations arrives with a coordinate precise enough to map, so any spatial read of this data — clustering, neighborhood density, catchment analysis — rests on that minority. We would rather state the 19.5% plainly than publish a map that implies coverage we do not have.

Chicago and New York City report activity coverage of 100.0% because their free-text activity is always present, even when a NAICS code is not. That is why we summarize them by activity: Chicago's most common is "180 Day Multiple Events - Special Event Food" at 159 filings, and New York City's is "Home Improvement Contractor" at 68 — categories that would vanish if forced into a NAICS bucket.

What New Registrations Mean for Automation

A new registration is the earliest public signal that a business exists — often before it has a phone system, a booking flow, or a way to answer after hours. That timing is the opportunity. US Tech Automations builds day-one automation stacks — intake, scheduling, and voice agents — aimed at exactly the trades and service businesses that dominate this data.

Construction and home-services formations lead every metro here, and those are the operators for whom a missed call is a lost job. Our write-up on client-retention automation for midsize businesses covers the follow-up side, and the ROI framing for business instructors shows how we size a payback before anyone signs anything.

The practical read is timing. A registration that shows up in one of these feeds this week is a business that, more often than not, has not yet stood up the operational plumbing an established competitor already runs. Reaching that owner in the first weeks — with a working intake line and a booking flow rather than a pitch deck — is the difference between being their first vendor and their third.

Questions Founders and Operators Ask

Q: How many new businesses formed in these metros?

A: The index captured 10,376 distinct new business registrations across 4 tracked metros as of July 13, 2026. That is a count of records in four public municipal feeds, not an estimate of total formation, and it excludes renewals.

Q: Are these applications or actual formations?

A: They are new business registrations — the new-filing stream in each city's municipal business-license dataset, excluding renewals. Each is counted once at first observation, so a single business is never double-counted across days.

Q: Which sectors are forming the most?

A: Among registrations that carry a NAICS code, Construction leads at 1,103 registrations and a 16.8% share, followed by Retail Trade at 861 and Accommodation & Food Services at 806. Those shares cover the 63.4% of records that are NAICS-coded.

Q: Is this the whole city, or the whole country?

A: Neither. It is a census of four municipal datasets only — Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, and San Francisco — and must never be presented as a city-wide, statewide, or national total. New York City in particular is under-covered here, with data current only to April 16, 2026.

Method and Provenance

Every count is a verbatim count of distinct business registrations the clock actually captured; nothing is estimated, modeled or extrapolated. Each formation is counted once at first observation. NAICS sectors are grouped from the first two digits of each record's own NAICS code (SF and LA carry NAICS; Chicago and NYC publish a free-text activity, summarized separately).

Figures describe the tracked metros only and must never be presented as a city-wide, statewide or national total. The business-formation clock captures the new-filing stream daily from open municipal Socrata datasets and content-hashes each sealed edition, so any figure here can be traced back to the exact records that produced it — nothing is estimated, modeled, or extrapolated.

Source: US Tech Automations Research — New-Business Formation Index, sealed July 2026 edition, from open municipal Socrata datasets for Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, and San Francisco.