Contents
- British Columbia small business counts statistics: How many businesses are there?
- British Columbia small business counts statistics by employee size
- British Columbia small business counts statistics per capita and across provinces
- British Columbia small business counts statistics by industry
- British Columbia small business counts statistics: Exports and economic contribution
- Sources
British Columbia small business counts statistics: How many businesses are there?
There is no single count of “small businesses” that answers every question. The total changes depending on whether the measure covers employer enterprises or operating locations, and whether it includes businesses without paid employees. For December 2024, federal and provincial tables provide useful but distinct views of British Columbia’s business population.
Under Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada’s (ISED) definition, a small business has 1 to 99 paid employees. ISED counted 170,512 small employer enterprises in B.C. in December 2024. Its total for employer enterprises of all sizes was 173,246. These are enterprise-level counts; enterprises without paid employees are generally not included. (Key Small Business Statistics 2025)
A separate provincial table counts operating locations and reports whether they have employees. It recorded 216,623 B.C. locations with employees and 572,294 without employees in December 2024. Each operating location is counted separately, so a multi-location business can contribute more than one location. These location totals should not be added to, or substituted for, ISED’s enterprise counts: they use a different unit and the no-employee category is excluded from ISED’s usual employer-business definition. (Business Counts: Manitoba, December 2024)
The distinction is substantial. A count of employer enterprises answers how many businesses have paid employees under a federal enterprise definition. A location count captures operating sites, including locations without employees. Readers comparing figures across reports should check both the unit counted and the employee threshold before interpreting a difference as business growth or decline.
British Columbia small business counts statistics by employee size
The December 2024 location table shows that most B.C. locations with employees were in the smallest employee bands. The five bands below the 100-employee threshold sum to 212,900 locations with 1–99 employees. This is a location count, not the ISED total of 170,512 small employer enterprises.
| Employees at location | B.C. locations, December 2024 |
|---|---|
| 1–4 | 122,718 |
| 5–9 | 40,139 |
| 10–19 | 26,794 |
| 20–49 | 17,454 |
| 50–99 | 5,795 |
| 1–99 total | 212,900 |
| 100–199 | 2,287 |
| 200–499 | 1,018 |
| 100–499 total | 3,305 |
| 500 or more | 418 |
Source: Business Counts: Manitoba, December 2024, Table 1A. The report counts each operating location separately.
The 1–4 employee band alone accounts for more than half of the 1–99 employee location total. Counts fall in each successively larger band, with 5,795 locations in the 50–99 range. Above that, the table records 3,305 medium-sized locations with 100–499 employees and 418 large locations with at least 500 employees.
These bands describe the distribution of locations by their employee count. They do not show the number of people employed in each band, business revenue, or whether a location is independently owned. They also should not be conflated with ISED’s enterprise-based definition when comparing the small-business total across sources.
British Columbia small business counts statistics per capita and across provinces
Business counts can also be scaled to population. ISED’s December 2024 table reports 36.3 employer businesses per 1,000 B.C. residents aged 18 and over. The same table gives Alberta a rate of 36.3 and Prince Edward Island a rate of 36.2. Newfoundland and Labrador’s rate is 27.9, while Nova Scotia’s is 28.3. These rates cover employer businesses of all sizes, not just small businesses. (Key Small Business Statistics 2025)
On this measure, B.C. and Alberta are level at the table’s displayed precision, and P.E.I. is close behind. The rates for Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia are lower. A per-capita rate helps compare the prevalence of employer businesses across provinces of different population sizes; it does not tell us how many businesses operate in total, how many are small, or how many people they employ.
ISED’s page contains an internal discrepancy: its table lists 36.3 for B.C. and Alberta, while a narrative passage reports 37.7 for each. The figures here follow the table, whose header defines the measure as businesses per 1,000 people aged 18 and older. The discrepancy is a reason to identify the table value explicitly rather than silently blend the two figures.
British Columbia small business counts statistics by industry
The checked industry breakdowns are national, not B.C.-specific. They can provide context on the role of small businesses across Canada, but they should not be read as counts or employment shares for British Columbia.
In December 2024, Canada had 12,165 employer enterprises with 1–99 employees in information and cultural industries. The industry’s all-size employer-business total was 12,580. This indicates that small enterprises made up the large majority of the employer-business count in that national industry table. (Key Small Business Statistics 2025)
Employment statistics show a different aspect of small-business presence. In 2024, Canadian small businesses employed 830,700 people in construction, equal to 70.4% of employment in that industry. In accommodation and food services, they employed 868,600 people, or 66.8% of the industry workforce. In retail trade, small businesses employed 875,700 people, representing 43.7% of industry employment. These are national private-sector employment figures; the percentages use each industry’s total employment as the denominator. (Key Small Business Statistics 2025)
The comparison illustrates why business counts and job counts should remain separate. A large number of small enterprises in an industry does not by itself establish their share of employment, and an employment share does not reveal the number of firms or locations. The available industry employment shares describe Canada as a whole, not B.C.’s industry mix.
British Columbia small business counts statistics: Exports and economic contribution
B.C.’s goods-export figures describe establishments that export goods, rather than all businesses or small businesses alone. In 2024, the province had 7,649 goods-exporting establishments. They exported $52.3 billion in goods, equal to 7.3% of Canada’s goods-export value. The average export value was $6.8 million per exporting establishment, and the province had 39.6 goods exporters per 1,000 establishments. The average is per exporting establishment, not per all B.C. businesses. (Key Small Business Statistics 2025)
National figures show that small businesses’ share of goods-export value varies by industry. In 2024, Canadian small businesses accounted for 60.9% of wholesale-trade goods-export value, compared with 13.7% in manufacturing and 23.3% in other industries. These shares are national and are not a breakdown of B.C.’s $52.3 billion in goods exports. (Key Small Business Statistics 2025)
Small businesses also account for a large share of employment nationally. In 2024, they employed 5.84 million people in Canada’s private sector, or 46.60% of private-sector employment. ISED reports that small businesses contributed 33.2% of Canada’s private-sector GDP in 2022. For the broader small-and-medium-sized enterprise group—businesses with 1–499 employees—the average contribution to GDP over 2018–2022 was 50.2% in goods-producing industries and 46.4% in services-producing industries. The five-year averages and the 2022 small-business figure refer to different periods and business-size definitions. (Key Small Business Statistics 2025)
Together, these measures place B.C.’s business counts alongside its goods-export activity, while keeping provincial totals distinct from national evidence about small-business jobs, GDP and industry export shares. The available figures support comparisons of counts, employee bands, population-adjusted prevalence and exports; they do not provide a B.C.-specific industry employment or small-business GDP breakdown.