SME Research and Statistics
Resources for Canadian businesses
Latest report releases
- The impact of regulatory compliance costs on business performance
- Biannual Survey of Suppliers of Business Financing — Data Analysis, Second Half 2019
- Credit Conditions Survey - 2019
- Small Business Credit Condition Trends 2009–2019
- What Drives Firm Growth? A Quantile Regression Analysis on Canadian Small and Medium Enterprises – July 2020
- High-Growth Firms Characteristics in Canada – May 2020
- SME Profile: Clean technology in Canada – February 2020
- Biannual Survey of Suppliers of Business Financing—Data analysis, first half 2019
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
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