A Profile of the Nation’s Hispanic-Owned Businesses
October 12, 2024
The 2022 Annual Business Survey shows there were a total of 406,086 Hispanic-owned employer firms in the United States in 2021.
Among employer firms that allowed work from home (WFH), those with Hispanic owners reported the lowest share (33.5%) compared to equally Hispanic/non-Hispanic-owned (40.5%) and non-Hispanic-owned firms (38.6%).
A business is considered Hispanic-owned when 51% or more of the stock or equity is held by Hispanic owner(s) of any race. Businesses are considered equally Hispanic/non-Hispanic owned when 50% of the stock or equity is held by a Hispanic owner(s) of any race and the other 50% of the stock or equity is held by a non-Hispanic owner(s) of any race.
This article excludes unclassifiable firms like public firms, nonprofits and those without an owner who holds at least 10% of the business. The ABS is collected from employer businesses and uses survey responses to produce data on business ownership.
Hispanic-owned firms generated $572.9 billion in revenue, around 3.3% of the total revenue ($17.4 trillion) generated by all employer businesses in 2021.
Hispanic-owned businesses were predominantly male-owned — 255,604 compared to 103,793 female-owned firms, and 46,688 firms had equal female/male joint ownership.Owners ages 45 to 54 made up 30.6% of Hispanic-owned businesses — the largest age category.
Urban, Rural and States
Most Hispanic-owned employer firms were in urban areas (356,975) rather than in rural areas (22,826).
There were also more equally Hispanic/non-Hispanic-owned firms in urban areas (47,640) than in rural areas (4,863).
California had the largest number of Hispanic-owned firms (88,920), but not the largest share (about 11.8%) of that state’s 750,821 employer firms. Around 18.1%, or 85,966 of Florida’s 473,751 firms and about 14.6% or 63,560 of Texas’ 436,808 firms were Hispanic-owned.
Top Sectors for Hispanic-Owned Businesses
Construction was the top industry sector (70,571 firms) for Hispanic-owned businesses, according to the 2-digit North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code. It was followed by Accommodation and Food Services (46,795) and Professional, Scientific and Technical Services (44,684), but the difference between these two sectors was not statistically significant.
The distribution of firms by sector for equally Hispanic/non-Hispanic-owned firms was slightly different. The three sectors for that category with the highest number of firms were Accommodation and Food services (8,238), Professional, Scientific and Technical Services (7,525) and Construction (7,363) but the differences between them are not statistically significant.
Remote Workers
Employer firms overall were less likely to have remote workers, regardless of ethnicity.
Among employer firms that allowed work from home (WFH), those with Hispanic owners reported the lowest share (33.5%) compared to equally Hispanic/non-Hispanic-owned (40.5%) and non-Hispanic-owned firms (38.6%).
Hispanic-owned firms that allowed remote work were most commonly also women-owned (38.7%).
In all three breakdowns of ethnicity, the difference in the share of revenue generated in either category of WFH was not statistically significant.
Family-Owned Businesses
The ethnicity category of firms most likely to be family-owned was equally Hispanic/non-Hispanic-owned businesses (66.1%) while Hispanic-owned firms were least likely to be family-owned (25.2%).
Equally Hispanic/non-Hispanic-owned businesses were more likely (39.4%) and Hispanic-owned businesses less likely (19.1%) to be jointly owned and equally operated by spouses.
Education
The highest level of education reported by the largest share of Hispanic business owners was a high school diploma or GED (23.6%) compared to 17.7% for non-Hispanic business owners, followed by a bachelor’s degree (21.9%) compared to 31.9% for non-Hispanic owners.
Veteran Status
In 2021, only 4.1% or 16,462 Hispanic-owned firms were also owned by veterans and 4,484 of them had been in business for 16 or more years.
Among veterans, Hispanic-owned businesses generated less revenue ($32.4 billion) than non-Hispanic businesses ($889.5 billion).
Definitions and information about confidentiality and sampling and nonsampling error for the 2022 Annual Business Survey are available on the ABS Methodology page.
