New Business Applications in Northeast Georgia, 2019 to 2025

Business applications by county, 2019 and 2025

Georgia and U.S. figures are the sums of all county rows in the same Census file. Per 1,000 is applications per 1,000 residents, using the Census Bureau's July 1 population estimate for the same year.

Jackson County up close

From 2005 to 2016, Jackson County's count stayed between 400 and 522 applications a year. It has gone up every year since: 577 in 2017, 742 in 2019, 1,232 in 2021 and 1,643 in 2025. The biggest one-year jump came in 2021 (up 352).

The county's population grew too, from 73,015 in 2019 to 99,265 in 2025 (Census estimates), up 36%. Applications grew much faster, so per resident they went from 10.2 to 16.6 per 1,000 residents.

Per resident, Jackson County is still below Georgia as a whole (22.5 per 1,000 in 2025) and about level with the nation (16.6). Of the six counties, Barrow had the highest rate in 2025 (19.0).

Across the six counties

All six counties had more applications in 2025 than in 2019. Banks County rose the most in percentage terms (128%), but from a small base: 129 applications in 2019 and 294 in 2025. Hall County, the largest, went from 1,900 to 3,648. Athens-Clarke rose least (46%), close to the statewide rise; its busiest year was 2021 (2,288).

Together the six counties went from 5,173 applications in 2019 to 9,719 in 2025, up 88%. Nationally, applications rose 62%.

Business applications by year, 2005 to 2025

Census builds each year from whole weeks, Sunday to Saturday, so a year can start or end a few days off the calendar year. 2008, 2014, 2020 and 2025 had 53 weeks; the other years from 2006 on had 52.

An application is not an open business

Census counts an application each time someone asks the IRS for an employer identification number (EIN) for a business, leaving out filings for tax liens, estates, trusts and a few other kinds. Many applications never turn into a working business. Many others become one-person businesses that never hire anyone.

Census tracks one step after the application: the first payroll. In Georgia, 4.8% of the business applications filed in 2022 (13,144 of 273,380) had become businesses with employees on payroll within two years. For applications filed in 2019, it was 7.1%.

So the rise in applications measures how many people are starting or planning a business. It is not a count of new storefronts or new jobs, and Census does not publish, county by county, how many applications became operating businesses.

What this means for contracts and liens

• More new companies means more first-time owners signing their first leases, supplier accounts and customer contracts. Get the deal in writing before the work starts. See contract templates vs. a lawyer-drafted contract.
• A new LLC with no operating agreement runs on Georgia's default rules, which may not match what the owners agreed. See Georgia LLC operating agreements.
• Landlords and suppliers often ask the owner of a young company to sign a personal guaranty, which makes the owner personally liable for the company's debt. See personal guaranties in Georgia.
• Contractors, subcontractors and suppliers who work for a company with no track record carry more payment risk, and Georgia lien rights run on short deadlines: a claim of lien must be filed within 90 days after the last day you furnished labor or materials. See our Georgia construction payment guide.
• A lien waiver signed before the money arrives can still take effect 90 days after signing unless you file an affidavit of nonpayment first. See Georgia lien waivers.

How we did this

Business applications come from the Census Bureau's Business Formation Statistics (BFS): the annual county file released June 10, 2026, which covers 2005 to 2025. Census counts applications for an employer identification number (EIN) made for business purposes. It leaves out applications for tax liens, estates, trusts and certain financial filings, most agriculture and public administration, and some industries such as private households.

Census years in this file are built from whole weeks: 2019 ran from December 30, 2018 to December 28, 2019 (52 weeks) and 2025 from December 29, 2024 to January 3, 2026 (53 weeks). The extra week adds about 2% to 2025. Without it, Jackson County's applications still more than doubled.

Georgia and U.S. totals are the sums of the county rows in the same file. A separate script checked them against the Census Bureau's weekly state and national totals and re-checked every county figure against a fresh download of the county file.

Rates per 1,000 residents use the Census Bureau's July 1 population estimates for the same year (Vintage 2025 for 2020 to 2025; Vintage 2020 for 2019).

The share of applications that became businesses with a payroll comes from the Census Bureau's monthly state series: business formations within eight quarters of the application, not seasonally adjusted, summed over the year's applications.

Census calls Athens-Clarke County "Clarke County". We use the name of the consolidated government.

Limits

• An application is not a business that opened, and Census does not publish county counts of applications that became operating businesses.
• To protect confidentiality, Census added a small amount of random noise to each county's yearly count. It matters little for counts in the hundreds or thousands, but small counts such as Banks County's are a little less exact.
• County counts are not broken down by industry, so we cannot say how many applications were for construction or any other trade.
• 2025 had 53 weeks and 2019 had 52 (see How we did this).
• Population estimates for 2019 and 2025 come from different Census vintages, the latest available for each year.