SME Research and Statistics
Resources for Canadian Businesses
Latest report releases
- SME Profile: Clean technology in Canada – February 2020
- Biannual Survey of Suppliers of Business Financing—Data analysis, first half 2019
- SME Profile: Ownership demographics statistics - January 2020
- Key Small Business Statistics – November 2019
- SME Profile: Financing and growth of Co-operatives in Canada, 2017
- Biannual Survey of Suppliers of Business Financing—Data analysis, second half 2018
- Canada Small Business Financing Program: Economic impact analysis – July 2019
- Canada Small Business Financing Program: Cost-benefit analysis – May 2019
- Venture Capital Catalyst initiative: Performance measurement framework
- Canadian High-Growth SMEs and their propensity to invest in R&D and export (March 2019)
- Venture Capital Action Plan performance metrics
- SME Profile: Canadian start-ups — A perspective based upon the 2014 Survey on Financing and Growth of Small and Medium Enterprises (September 2018)
- Canadian new firms: Birth and survival rates over the period 2002–2014 (May 2018)
- Incrementality study of the Canada Small Business Financing Program(March 2018)
- The contribution to Canadian net employment change by high-growth firms (December 2017)
- Comparing measures of high-growth enterprises: A Canadian case study (February 2017)
- A comparison of the performance of female-owned and male-owned small and medium-sized enterprises (November 2016)
- SME Profile: Co-operatives in Canada
SME in Canada
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Definition
Small: 1-99 employees;
Medium: 100‑499 employees;
Large: 500 employees and more; -
Number of businesses with employees in 2019
Small: 1,200,571 (97.9%)
Medium: 22,905 (1.9%)
Large: 2,978 (0.2%)
Total: 1,226,454
Source: Statistics Canada, Business Register, December 2019 -
Number of private sector employees in 2019
Small: 8,459,593 (68.8%)
Medium: 2,428,356 (19.4%)
Large: 1,415,550 (11.5%)
Total: 12,303,499
Sources: Statistics Canada, Labour Force Survey (LFS); and calculations by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada -
Debt financing requests by SMEs in 2017
Request rate: 25.6%
Approval rate: 86.6%
Source:Survey on Financing and Growth of SMEs, 2017 -
Contribution to gross domestic product (GDP)
Between 2011 and 2015, small businesses accounted for 40.6% of GDP, while medium-sized businesses accounted for 12.7%.
Source: KSBS, November 2019
Latest releases or updates
Key Small Business Statistics
Special Edition
Determinants of entrepreneurship in Canada: State of knowledge Updated:
Contents
Released:
Section 1
Released:
Section 2
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Section 3
Released:
Biannual survey of suppliers of business financing
Survey on financing and growth of small and medium enterprises
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