Immigrant-Owned Business Statistics: Census Data

The most recent federal statistics on immigrant business ownership show that 22.1% of U.S. nonemployer business owners were born outside the country, against 77.9% born in it. Only 14.3% were not U.S. citizens. Heading into 2026 those 2017 Census figures are still the newest published on owner nativity — which is itself part of the story.

How many U.S. business owners were born outside the country?

According to the Census Bureau's Nonemployer Statistics by Demographics, 77.9% of nonemployer business owners were native-born and 22.1% were born outside the United States. Nonemployer businesses are firms with no paid employees — the owner is the whole company — and they are the large majority of all U.S. businesses by count.

The more revealing number sits next to it. While 22.1% of those owners were born abroad, only 14.3% were not U.S. citizens. The gap of roughly 7.8 percentage points is made up of naturalized citizens: people who were born in another country and later became Americans. Any figure that treats "foreign-born" and "non-citizen" as the same thing is describing two different populations, and the difference is close to a third of the foreign-born group.

That distinction matters well beyond the statistics. Citizenship status, not place of birth, is what most funding applications actually ask about, and the two questions have materially different answers for a large share of owners.

Why the most-cited immigrant business statistics are older than they look

Almost every published figure on immigrant business ownership traces back to the same source: the Census Bureau's 2017 Nonemployer Statistics by Demographics, released in 2021. It has not been superseded. The Census Bureau's Annual Business Survey publishes owner demographics annually by sex, ethnicity, race and veteran status — but its current releases do not break owners out by nativity or citizenship at all.

So the honest position is this: the newest authoritative U.S. figures on immigrant business ownership describe 2017, cover only businesses with no employees, and say nothing about firms that run a payroll. Estimates you will see quoted for later years are generally modelled, projected from survey data such as the American Community Survey, or produced by advocacy organisations rather than by a statistical agency. Those can be reasonable, but they are a different kind of number and should not be presented as Census counts.

We would rather tell you the data is eight years old than dress up an estimate as a measurement. If the Annual Business Survey adds a nativity breakdown in a future release, that will be the number worth citing — and it will finally cover employer firms, which is where most of the questions about hiring, payroll and funding actually sit.

Where immigrant-owned businesses concentrate

The national average hides very large sector differences. In Accommodation and Food Services — restaurants, cafes, catering, small hotels — 86.6% of Asian nonemployer business owners were foreign-born, and 58.6% of Hispanic owners in the same sector were, amounting to 18.1% of all owners in that sector. Food service is the clearest concentration in the dataset.

The pattern inverts elsewhere. In Retail Trade, the substantial majority of owners were U.S.-born: 1,594,000 White owners (88.0%) and 119,000 Black or African American owners (74.1%). In the Information sector the two groups split in opposite directions — 15,500 Asian owners (67.4%) were born abroad, while 20,500 Hispanic owners (61.2%) were born in the United States.

The practical reading is that "immigrant-owned business" is not one market. A foreign-born owner running a food-service business and a foreign-born owner running an information-services business are in different industries with different capital needs, different margins and different funding products. Sector tends to predict what a business needs far better than the owner's background does.

What this means when you are looking for funding

Most revenue-based funders underwrite on the business, not the biography: months in business, deposits into the business bank account, and the consistency of those deposits. What does get asked is citizenship or residency status, because it affects which funders can write the file and what identification they need. Being born abroad and being a non-citizen are treated as different situations, which is exactly why the 22.1% versus 14.3% split above is worth understanding before you apply.

If you are not a U.S. citizen, the practical questions are usually about documentation rather than eligibility — an EIN, a U.S. business bank account, and what identification a given funder will accept. Our guide to business funding as a non-U.S. citizen covers what tends to be asked for. Requirements differ by funder and immigration status is a legal question, so for anything touching your status, speak to an immigration attorney rather than a funding broker.

Where a broker helps is breadth. The Broker Shop is a funding broker, not a funder: one 2-minute application goes to the funders in our network of 50+ whose guidelines your business meets, so a single funder's policy is not the whole answer. It is free to apply, and checking your options won't affect your credit score. If you want the landscape first, start with the seven funding options.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau — Most Nonemployer Businesses Owned by U.S.-Born But Foreign-Born Hispanic and Asian Owners Had a Large Presence in Some Sectors (2017 Nonemployer Statistics by Demographics) · U.S. Census Bureau — Census Bureau Releases New Data About Characteristics of Employer and Nonemployer Business Owners (2024 Annual Business Survey)