NATIONAL Small Business statistics	release date: 4 AUGUST 2017 
Number of Small Business#

	now 2,116,708 	á 2.4 per cent
over 2015-16	
		In 2016, 97 per cent of all businesses are small businesses—62 per cent (or 1,318,579) of small businesses are 
non-employing businesses.	

Source: ABS 8165			
Employing Small Businesses
	                     now 798,129	á 2.1 per cent
over 2015-16	

Source: ABS 8165		75 per cent (or 599,408) of employing small businesses employ 1 to 4 employees
	
Small Business Proportion of Output^	now 34.9 per cent	â0.2
percentage points
over 2015-16	
		
In 2016, small business accounted for around $380 billion worth of industry value added.	

Source: ABS 8155			
Small Business Proportion of Employment^ 

	now 44.3 per cent	â0.4 
percentage points
over 2015-16	
		In 2016, small business provided employment for around 4.7 million people. 	

Source: ABS 8155			
^ Output and employment data excludes financial, insurance and public sectors.

 
 
# Note: In the recent 2017-18 Budget it was estimated that a change to the definition of small business entity in the taxation law could impact around 3.2 million small businesses. These numbers are determined using ATO tax data, rather than ABS data. ABS data differs from the ATO data because these two organisations define small business differently. The ABS uses a definition of businesses that employ fewer than 20 employees. The ATO (and the taxation laws) define a small business as a business with aggregated annual turnover (the sum of business activity across all “connected” business entities).  Further, the scope of ABS statistics is narrower. The ABS statistics is focused on counting only actively trading businesses, rather than all entities carrying out economic activity, or in other words, the ATO data includes transitory businesses while the ABS looks to capture ongoing businesses.