18,908 New Businesses Across 4 Metros: USTA Index

This is not a national new-business total. On September 1, 2026 the USTA New-Business Formation Index sealed 18,908 new registrations across 4 tracked metros — Chicago, IL, Los Angeles, CA, New York City, NY, San Francisco, CA — and that is the whole geography of the page.

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 September 1, 2026. This is a census of those four municipal datasets, not of every business formed in the United States or in any single state.

The NAICS sector mix covers only the records that carry a code (56.1%). Chicago and New York City do not publish NAICS; they publish a free-text licensed activity, and those labels are not blended into the sector table. The July formation index is a separate sealed day. This September edition does not subtract from it.

Four city feeds are not the country, and a license row is not a storefront census.

18,908 new registrations were captured across 4 metros.

Key Takeaways

• 18,908 distinct new registrations across 4 metros, first observed as early as March 28, 2026 and as late as September 1, 2026.

• Los Angeles holds 8,778 of those rows; San Francisco 4,587; Chicago 3,406; New York City 2,137.

• NAICS coverage on the cumulative set is 56.1%. Construction leads the coded mix at 1,659 registrations, a 15.6% share.

• The recent 90-day window holds 9,967 registrations; on that coded slice, Retail Trade leads at 687 (16.3%).

• Chicago's top activity is 180 Day Multiple Events - Special Event Food (169). New York City's is Home Improvement Contractor (399).

Four City Feeds, Not a National Count

A sealed snapshot is a freeze of the rows the clock actually captured, hashed so the figures cannot quietly drift later. It is not a model of businesses the cities failed to license, and it is not a Census Bureau formation series.

Each registration is counted once, at first observation. Renewals are excluded. First observations in the cumulative set run back to March 28, 2026. Collection for this edition runs from June 26, 2026 to September 1, 2026. Those two windows answer different questions: how far back the captured rows go, versus when this edition's clock was running.

Los Angeles is the largest metro row at 8,778. San Francisco is 4,587. Chicago is 3,406. New York City is 2,137. Nothing in those four rows may be scaled to a state or to the nation. The Los Angeles formations page is the metro-level sibling for the largest feed; this index only stacks the four municipal datasets.

Los Angeles accounts for 8,778 of the tracked registrations.

Geo coverage on the cumulative set is 15.8%. That is the share of captured rows that carry usable geography in the freeze, not a claim about how much of each city is mapped. Quote it as coverage, not as a market-size number.

Metro by Metro

Two metros report NAICS sectors. Two report free-text licensed activity. The mix columns are therefore not directly comparable, which is why this table keeps coverage and the local top label on separate terms.

Los Angeles publishes a NAICS code on 97.3% of its records, so its Retail Trade lead at 15.2% is a real sector read on almost the full LA slice. San Francisco publishes NAICS on 45.2%, and Construction at 21.6% is a heavier construction share than the four-metro coded pool — on a thinner coded base.

Chicago and New York City arrive as free-text activity at 100.0% coverage of that activity field. Chicago's leading licensed activity is 180 Day Multiple Events - Special Event Food at 169 registrations. That is a permit-shaped food-event license, copied from Chicago's own label. It is not a NAICS sector and it is not a census of Chicago restaurants. The Chicago formations page is the place to stay inside that activity feed.

New York City's leading activity is Home Improvement Contractor at 399 registrations. That is the distinctive local texture on this freeze: event food in Chicago, home-improvement contracting in New York City. The 2,137 New York City registrations are that city's captured new-filing stream, not a complete city census. See the New York City formations page for the activity cut without the other three metros stacked on top.

The recent 90-day metro cuts still run in the same order: Los Angeles 4,068, San Francisco 2,275, Chicago 1,967, New York City 1,657. Recency inside one freeze is not a month-over-month claim.

Coded Sectors on This Freeze

Records carrying a NAICS code are grouped into 2-digit NAICS sectors (Construction, Retail Trade, Professional & Technical Services, etc.); the sector is read from the record’s own code. The coded set contains 10,612 filings. Shares below are over those coded records only, not over all 18,908 rows. Cumulative NAICS coverage is 56.1%.

Construction leads the coded mix at 1,659 registrations, a 15.6% share.

Sector shares are over the 10,612 NAICS-coded filings, not over all 18,908 rows.

Construction, Retail Trade, and Professional, Scientific & Technical Services sit at the front of the coded distribution. That is a trades-and-storefronts mix, not a software-startup mix. Accommodation & Food Services at 1,166 (11.0%) and Other Services at 1,065 (10.0%) keep the list in hands-on local work. Health Care & Social Assistance is 788 and 7.4%. Arts, Entertainment & Recreation is 525 and 4.9%. Administrative & Support / Waste Services is 500 and 4.7%.

San Francisco's own coded mix is even more construction-heavy than the four-metro coded pool: Construction is that metro's top sector at a 21.6% share. Los Angeles' top sector is Retail Trade at 15.2%. Those are metro-level labels, not a national industry ranking.

The coded subset's own NAICS coverage is 100.0% by construction: it is the rows that have a code. Do not add the sector counts and expect 18,908. Chicago and New York City never enter this table.

The Recent Window Inside the Same Seal

Narrowing to the recent 90-day window leaves 9,967 registrations. Earliest row in that window is June 3, 2026; freshest is September 1, 2026. On the coded slice of that window, Retail Trade leads, not Construction.

In the recent 90-day window, 9,967 registrations were captured.

Retail Trade holds 687 coded registrations and a 16.3% share in that window. Construction is 620 and 14.7%. The two sectors swap order relative to the cumulative coded table. That swap is a composition fact inside one freeze, not a claim that construction slowed or retail sped up across months.

Recent NAICS coverage is 42.2%, lower than the cumulative 56.1%. A larger share of the recent window arrives without a code, so the sector table is a thinner cut. Say so when you quote it. Recent geo coverage is 17.3%.

The July formation index is another dated freeze in this series. This page does not borrow its counts and does not describe a rise or a fall against it.

How Registrations Are Counted

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 clock reads open municipal Socrata datasets and content-hashes each sealed edition. Counts are distinct new business registrations captured across the tracked metros only — a census of those municipal datasets, never extrapolated to a city, state or national total. The US Tech Automations business-formation clock is the collector; the published figures are only the freeze.

1. Pull. Read the new-filing stream from each city's open business-license dataset. Exclude renewals.

2. Dedupe. Count each registration once, at first observation.

3. Split codes. Group NAICS-coded records by the first two digits of the record's own code. Summarize Chicago and New York City by free-text activity, not by sector.

4. Seal. Content-hash the closed display set for the day and publish only from that freeze.

Records carrying a NAICS code are grouped into 2-digit NAICS sectors; the sector is read from the record’s own code. Chicago and NYC publish a free-text activity instead of NAICS and are summarized by activity.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Is 18,908 the number of every new U.S. business?
A: No. It is the count of distinct new registrations captured from 4 municipal datasets as of September 1, 2026. The metros are Chicago, IL, Los Angeles, CA, New York City, NY, and San Francisco, CA. It is not a national, statewide, or even city-complete total.

Q: Why do the sector shares not add across all 18,908 rows?
A: Sector shares are computed over NAICS-coded records only. Cumulative NAICS coverage is 56.1%. The coded set is 10,612 filings. Chicago and New York City publish free-text activity instead of NAICS, so they are summarized by activity label, not folded into those sector percentages.

Q: What is Chicago's leading activity on this freeze?
A: 180 Day Multiple Events - Special Event Food at 169 registrations. That is a licensed food-event activity, copied from Chicago's own label. It is not a NAICS sector and it is not a claim about Chicago restaurants as a whole.

Q: What is New York City's leading activity?
A: Home Improvement Contractor, at 399 registrations. New York City publishes free-text activity at 100.0% coverage of that field. The 2,137 New York City registrations in the metro table are that city's captured new-filing stream, not a complete city census.

Q: Is this a trend page?
A: No. This edition is a point-in-time census. It makes no change or trend claims. The 9,967 registrations in the recent 90-day window describe recency inside this freeze, not month-over-month movement. Retail Trade leading that coded slice at 16.3% is a composition fact, not a growth rate.

Q: Who actually files these rows?
A: Newly registered local operators — trades, storefronts, food, and professional services in the four tracked feeds. Construction leads the coded mix at 1,659 registrations (15.6%). A sales or onboarding team should read that as a stream of new counterparties, not as a national formation rate.

Put Formation Data to Work

A founder hunting net-new local accounts can treat the 18,908-row freeze as an intake pool: match new registrations in the four metros against territory lists, then sequence first-touch only after a human picks the fit. Construction's 1,659 coded rows and New York City's 399 home-improvement contractors are different lists, and they should stay different.

A customer-service operations manager at a local service firm can watch the same stream for newly licensed neighbors who will need scheduling, invoicing, and follow-up in the first weeks after they file. Chicago's 169 special-event food licenses are a bursty, date-bound activity — a bad fit for a generic new-restaurant sequence.

A compliance analyst supporting multi-metro onboarding can keep NAICS-coded records and free-text activity records on separate tracks, because 56.1% coverage means a large share of the cumulative set has no sector code to roll up. Do not force Chicago and New York City into Construction or Retail Trade.

US Tech Automations automates that monitoring: ingest the sealed municipal feeds, split coded versus activity records, and route the new rows into the workflow you already run. Start at sales-agent workflows.

Source: US Tech Automations Research — computed from the sealed daily business-formation snapshot, September 1, 2026.