The short answer: 61,424 small employers, and many more solo businesses
The Charlotte Regional Business Alliance counts 61,424 small businesses, meaning companies with fewer than 500 employees, across its 15-county region. That's 91.3% of the region's 67,245 businesses with a payroll, in Census data for 2022, the latest year of that series. Mecklenburg County has 26,908 of them. Businesses with no employees aren't in those counts, and there are far more of them: Census counted 134,724 in Mecklenburg in 2024 and 308,421 across the same 15 counties.
Most of those small employers are small in the everyday sense too: 86.1% have fewer than 20 employees. Together, small businesses employ 564,845 people, 42.5% of the jobs in the data, and took in $163.07 billion in 2022. Below: the key figures with sources, the detail behind them, and notes on what each number counts.
The key numbers, each with its source
“Region” means the alliance's 15 counties in North Carolina and South Carolina. The notes at the end explain why county, metro, and city figures differ.
| Statistic | Figure | Source and year |
|---|---|---|
| Small businesses (fewer than 500 employees), 15-county region | 61,424 | Charlotte Regional Business Alliance, 2026 report (2022 data) |
| Share of all businesses with employees that are small | 91.3% of 67,245 | Charlotte Regional Business Alliance, 2026 report (2022 data) |
| Small businesses with fewer than 20 employees | 52,899 (86.1% of small businesses) | Charlotte Regional Business Alliance, 2026 report (2022 data) |
| People employed by small businesses | 564,845 (42.5% of jobs counted) | Charlotte Regional Business Alliance, 2026 report (2022 data) |
| Small business receipts | $163.07 billion (33.9% of all receipts) | Charlotte Regional Business Alliance, 2026 report (2022 data) |
| Small businesses added, 2019 to 2022 | Nearly 6,000 (11%) | Charlotte Regional Business Alliance, 2026 report (2022 data) |
| Small businesses in Mecklenburg County | 26,908 (93% of the county’s businesses) | Charlotte Regional Business Alliance, 2026 report (2022 data) |
| Businesses with no employees, Mecklenburg County | 134,724 | Census Nonemployer Statistics, 2024, via QuickFacts |
| Businesses with no employees, all 15 counties | 308,421 | Census Nonemployer Statistics, 2024, via QuickFacts (my sum of the county figures below) |
| New business applications, Mecklenburg County | 30,212 (19,599 in 2019) | Census Business Formation Statistics, 2025 |
| Employer firms, Mecklenburg County | 25,840 | Census Annual Business Survey, 2023, via QuickFacts |
| Of those: women-owned, minority-owned, veteran-owned (51%+ ownership) | 5,961 · 6,110 · 1,194 | Census Annual Business Survey, 2023, via QuickFacts |
Professional services and construction lead the count
Professional, scientific and technical services, which covers law, engineering, and advertising firms among others, has the most small businesses. Construction is a close second and the most small-business-heavy industry of all: 98% of its businesses are small.
| Industry | Small businesses, 2022 | Share of the industry that's small |
|---|---|---|
| Professional, scientific and technical services | 8,174 | 95% |
| Construction | 7,954 | 98% |
| Other services | 7,306 | 97% |
| Health care and social assistance | 5,749 | 91% |
| Retail trade | 5,595 | 81% |
| Accommodation and food services | 4,738 | 89% |
| Real estate and rental and leasing | 4,179 | Not given |
| Administrative support and waste management | 3,867 | 91% |
| Wholesale trade | 3,243 | 84% |
| Transportation and warehousing | 2,584 | 89% |
| Finance and insurance | 2,479 | 79% |
| Manufacturing | 2,440 | 85% |
| Arts, entertainment and recreation | 1,272 | 95% |
| Educational services | 932 | 94% |
| Information | 611 | 72% |
| Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting | 96 | 88% |
| Industries not classified | 70 | Not given |
| Utilities | 19 | 23% |
| Mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction | 4 | 21% |
Source: Charlotte Regional Business Alliance, 2026 report, Figures 6 and 7. The top five industries hold 57% of the region's small businesses.
“Other services” is a catch-all: in the report's breakdown, 42.6% is religious, civic, professional, and similar organizations, 30.4% personal and laundry services like salons, and 27% repair and maintenance. In health care and social assistance, outpatient care such as doctors' and dentists' offices makes up 69.6%.
Within construction, specialty trade contractors (plumbing, electrical, and similar trades, often hired as subcontractors) are 63.3% of small businesses, builders 31.9%, and heavy and civil engineering firms 4.7%. Nine in ten of the small trade contractors (90.4%) have fewer than 20 employees.
Most have under 20 employees; the bigger ones carry the receipts
Each small-business size band employs a similar number of people, but receipts climb with size: the 8,525 businesses with 20 to 499 employees take in two-thirds of small-business receipts. Large companies are 8.7% of businesses and employ 57.5% of the workers in the data.
| Employees | Businesses | Jobs | Receipts | Average receipts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fewer than 20 | 52,899 | 196,384 | $55.41 billion | $1.05 million |
| 20 to 99 | 6,178 | 205,477 | $52.37 billion | $8.48 million |
| 100 to 499 | 2,347 | 162,984 | $55.29 billion | $23.56 million |
| All small businesses | 61,424 | 564,845 | $163.07 billion | $2.65 million |
| Large (500 or more) | 5,821 | 765,388 | $318.53 billion | Not given |
| All businesses | 67,245 | 1,330,233 | $481.61 billion | Not given |
Source: Charlotte Regional Business Alliance, 2026 report, Table 1 (2022 data).
Up 11% from 2019 to 2022, with applications still high
The region added nearly 6,000 small businesses from 2019 to 2022, an 11% increase. Small business employment rose by 27,787 jobs, about 5%, after a dip of about 2% in 2021. Census business applications give a newer read: Mecklenburg filings jumped after 2019, peaked in 2021, and have held near 30,000 a year since.
| Year | Mecklenburg County | All 15 counties |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 19,599 | 36,109 |
| 2020 | 27,200 | 48,580 |
| 2021 | 34,160 | 61,856 |
| 2022 | 29,656 | 57,182 |
| 2023 | 30,141 | 58,555 |
| 2024 | 28,614 | 56,688 |
| 2025 | 30,212 | 60,826 |
Business applications. Source: Census Business Formation Statistics (county data released June 2026); the 15-county column is my sum.
Mecklenburg has 44% of them; construction leads six counties
Mecklenburg holds about 44% of the region's small businesses and 56% of its small professional-services firms. Union has the highest share of small businesses (94%), York the lowest (83%). Construction is the largest small-business industry in six counties, other services in seven, and professional services in Mecklenburg and York. Add up the other 14 counties and construction comes first, with 5,071 businesses to other services' 4,668.
| County | Small businesses, 2022 | Share small | Largest small-business industry | No-employee businesses, 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mecklenburg, NC | 26,908 | 93% | Professional services (4,573) | 134,724 |
| Union, NC | 4,845 | 94% | Construction (935) | 26,484 |
| York, SC | 4,837 | 83% | Professional services (618) | 24,974 |
| Iredell, NC | 4,350 | 91% | Construction (612) | 19,064 |
| Cabarrus, NC | 4,010 | 89% | Construction (652) | 22,242 |
| Gaston, NC | 3,521 | 90% | Other services (556) | 19,188 |
| Catawba, NC | 3,375 | 88% | Other services (458) | 13,133 |
| Rowan, NC | 2,335 | 90% | Construction (362) | 11,722 |
| Lincoln, NC | 1,696 | 91% | Construction (310) | 7,901 |
| Cleveland, NC | 1,567 | 88% | Other services (289) | 7,120 |
| Lancaster, SC | 1,335 | 87% | Other services (221) | 9,055 |
| Stanly, NC | 1,156 | 90% | Construction (210) | 5,225 |
| Alexander, NC | 485 | 91% | Other services (86) | 2,756 |
| Chesterfield, SC | 481 | 86% | Other services (83) | 2,772 |
| Chester, SC | 411 | 85% | Other services (80) | 2,061 |
| Region (report total) | 61,424 | 91.3% | Professional services (8,174) | 308,421 |
Sources: Charlotte Regional Business Alliance, 2026 report, Figure 2 and Table 5; Census QuickFacts county pages for the last column, whose regional figure is my sum. The report's county counts add to 61,312, 112 short of its regional total.
Most businesses here have no employees at all
Census calls a business with no paid employees, at least $1,000 in receipts, and a federal income tax filing a nonemployer. Census's own examples are independent contractors and real estate agents. Mecklenburg had 134,724 of them in 2024, up 26% from 106,579 in 2019. In 2023 they took in $7.07 billion, about $56,700 each on average.
| Industry, Mecklenburg | 2019 | 2023 |
|---|---|---|
| Transportation and warehousing | 12,710 | 19,917 |
| Professional, scientific and technical services | 14,987 | 16,734 |
| Other services | 12,673 | 14,397 |
| Real estate and rental and leasing | 12,356 | 13,745 |
| Administrative support and waste management | 9,940 | 11,328 |
| Construction | 10,187 | 11,321 |
| All industries | 106,579 | 124,720 |
Nonemployer businesses in the six largest industries of 2023. Source: Census Nonemployer Statistics, 2019 and 2023 tables on data.census.gov.
Transportation and warehousing, the sector that covers trucking, couriers, and ground passenger transport, grew fastest and is now the largest. For Census's Charlotte metro area, a different set of counties, the 2023 total was 259,791.
Upbeat, short on capital, and squeezed on space
The City of Charlotte's small business assessment, run by the consultancy TPMA and finished in November 2025, drew on 860 owner survey responses from fall 2024 and more than 40 focus groups. Owners named access to capital as the main barrier to growth; 54% struggled to identify appropriate funding sources. TPMA reports only 28.3% of businesses seeking capital got appropriate funding, and nearly half didn't know where to go for support.
The assessment's key findings add that demand for commercial space, rising rents, and a shrinking supply of affordable space have hit small business owners disproportionately. Two bank surveys with Charlotte samples point the same way on money, and find owners here more upbeat than owners nationally.
| Charlotte owners who… | Charlotte | Comparison | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Expect higher profits in the next year | 89% | The most of any region TD surveyed | TD Bank, 2026 |
| Name economic conditions as their top financial concern | 44% | 52% nationally | TD Bank, 2026 |
| Have less than six months of emergency savings | 93% | 76% nationally | TD Bank, 2026 |
| Had fraud or attempted fraud in the past year | 56% | Not published | TD Bank, 2026 |
| Use AI in the business | 69% | 39% a year earlier, per TD | TD Bank, 2026 |
| Optimistic about their business’s future | 99% | 87% of owners overall | U.S. Bank, 2024 |
| Say reliable access to capital matters most for next year’s goals | 90% | 72% of owners overall | U.S. Bank, 2024 |
Read these as a mood check, not a count. TD's March 2026 survey covered businesses with 100 or fewer employees and at least $100,000 in revenue, and doesn't publish its Charlotte sample size. U.S. Bank asked 200 Charlotte owners with 2 to 99 employees.
What the mix suggests if you run one
My read, not a finding: when 86% of small employers have fewer than 20 people, the owner is usually the back office too, so the owner's hours are the scarce ones. Construction, the largest small-business industry outside Mecklenburg, is mostly small trade shops. AI estimating for Charlotte contractors walks through one job software can take off their plate, and bigger contractors can see what I build for construction back offices.
TD found 69% of its Charlotte respondents already using AI. If you're sorting out what's worth it at 5 to 50 people, start with what's real at your size. If you work alone, I'd stop at an assistant subscription or two and not pay anyone to build more, me included, until the work outgrows you.
What these numbers count, and what they don't
Read these before setting any figure here beside one from another source.
- 01Small means under 500. The report uses the SBA Office of Advocacy's general definition: an independent business with fewer than 500 employees across all its locations. A 450-person company counts.
- 02Employers and nonemployers don't overlap. The 61,424 comes from Census's Statistics of U.S. Businesses, which leaves out businesses without employees. Nonemployer Statistics counts those, one per business tax return, placed by the owner's mailing address.
- 03Years and sources differ. The alliance report came out in 2026 with 2022 data; the Census counts beside it run as late as 2025. Census warns that figures from different sources aren't comparable: its business survey counts 25,840 employer firms of all sizes in Mecklenburg for 2023, fewer than the report's 26,908 small ones for 2022.
- 04Region, metro, county, city. The region is the 15 counties in the county table. Census's Charlotte metro is a different set: its North Carolina part includes Anson County and leaves out Alexander, Catawba, Cleveland, and Stanly. None of these sources counts businesses inside the city limits; QuickFacts marks the city's business rows “not applicable.” Mecklenburg is the closest stand-in: the city holds 964,784 of the county's 1,233,383 residents (2025 estimates).
- 05County sums can double count. Census counts a firm in each county where it operates, so adding counties can count one company more than once.
- 06Where the report disagrees with itself, this page follows its tables. Its text says construction leads every county except Mecklenburg and York; its county table shows six. Its text puts specialty trades at 95% under 20 employees and builders at 90%; its table has them the other way around (90.4% and 95.0%), the same pattern as national Census data for 2022 (91.3% and 95.0%).
- 07Applications aren't openings. An application is a filing for a federal Employer Identification Number. Census counts 2025 as a 53-week year and adds a little noise to county figures to protect confidentiality.
How to cite this page
Nick George, “Charlotte small business statistics (2026): how many, what kind, and where,” nickgeorgeai.com, updated October 4, 2026, https://nickgeorgeai.com/insights/charlotte-small-business-statistics.
Quoting a single figure? Cite the original source linked beside it as well. Every source on this page was checked on the update date above.