https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2020/weekly-bfs-april16.html
https://www.census.gov/econ/bfs/index.html
April 16 -- On Wednesday, April 8, 2020, the Census Bureau released a weekly regional Business Formation Statistics (BFS) series. Due to the overwhelming response from our data users and requests for state-level data, we researched and developed a state-level weekly series. Today, we released the updated weekly BFS with business application data at the national, regional and state levels through the week ending April 11, 2020 -- in addition to releasing the quarterly Business Formation Statistics (BFS). The BFS, which was first released in February 2018, tracks trends in business applications and formations at the state, regional and national levels.
The Census Bureau will publish the weekly BFS series at the national, regional and state levels each Thursday by 12 p.m. EDT. The weekly data will be available for a limited time, and we will assess the demand for these data on an ongoing basis. The new weekly data series provide timely and granular information on potential new business development and can provide insight on the state of the economy. The weekly release will include only the business application series.
The weekly BFS consists of four business application series derived from administrative data from the IRS, specifically the data on applications for an Employer Identification Number (EIN) via IRS Form SS-4, to determine the number of business applications submitted in a quarter. The quarterly BFS also includes projections for business formations in the near future.
