Business Counts in Rural and Small Town Canada: Interactive Dashboard
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Note to readers
Insight from business counts in rural and small town Canada is key for understanding the dynamics of the national economy. This interactive dashboard is designed for users to explore current and historical counts of employer businesses by rural and small town area and non-employer businesses by province and territory, offering granularity by industry and employment size. Additionally, users can delve into the distribution of employer businesses by industry at the census subdivision level. Use the tabs below to examine drivers of economic activity within these areas.
Data
The data used to create this interactive web application is from the following listed CSV files:
Canadian Business Counts, with employees
The file size is approximately 296MB and can take up to 5 minutes to download.
Canadian Business Counts, without employees
The file size is approximately 1.8MB and can take up to 1 minute to download.
Additional information
Data presented in this interactive dashboard are based on counts of active businesses identified in Statistics Canada’s Business Register (BR), primarily compiled from Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) tax records. The dashboard provides a snapshot of the industrial and geographic distribution of active businesses across rural and small town Canada. The available data are organized according to the 2017 or 2022 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) and adhere to Statistics Canada’s 2021 Standard Geographical Classification (SGC).
Data have been standardized in the Statistical Data and Metadata eXchange (SDMX) format and their metadata have been organized to allow for efficient data linkage. Data will be regularly updated and expanded where possible.
Definitions
- Rural and small town (non-CMA/CA)
- Census subdivisions outside census metropolitan areas (CMAs) or census agglomerations (CAs), according to Statistics Canada’s Standard Geographical Classification (SGC). Variant of Standard Geographical Classification (SGC) 2021 for Statistical area classification.
- Functional urban area (CMA/CA)
- Census subdivisions within CMAs or CAs, according to Statistics Canada’s SGC. For more information see: Variant of Standard Geographical Classification (SGC) 2021 for Statistical area classification.
- Census subdivision (CSD)
- A general term for municipalities (as determined by provincial and territorial legislation) or areas treated as municipal equivalents for statistical purposes (e.g., Indian reserves, Indian settlements and unorganized territories). Municipal status is defined by laws in effect in each province and territory in Canada.
- Census metropolitan area (CMA)
- Formed by one or more adjacent municipalities centred on a population centre (known as the core). A CMA must have a total population of at least 100,000 of which 50,000 or more must live in the core, based on adjusted data from the Census of Population Program.
- Census agglomeration (CA)
- Formed by one or more adjacent municipalities centred on a population centre (known as the core). A CA must have a core population of at least 10,000, based on adjusted data from the Census of Population Program.
- Businesses with employees
- A business classified as “employer” if it has paid employees during the previous 12 months, for whom payroll deductions were filed with the CRA.
- Businesses without employees
- A business classified as “non-employer” if there is an absence of paid employees during the previous 12 months, for whom payroll deduction remittances were filed with the CRA.
- Business location
- The physical site where the business operates. Each operational site is counted separately, including cases when a single business comprises multiple locations.
Methodology
CSDs outside CMAs or CAs were identified as rural and small town (non-CMA/CA), while CSDs within CMAs or CAs were identified as functional urban areas (CMA/CA).
The counts of businesses with employees were aggregated by rural and small town area or functional urban area, employment size and two-digit NAICS code for each reference period and province or territory.
Employment size ranges were grouped as follows:
Considerations
Users should note potential limitations, including in the interpretation of period-to-period changes in these business counts because they can be affected by administrative or methodological changes in the underlying BR data.
Business counts are available for CSDs within CMAs as well as every CSD in Canada with 10 or more active businesses with employees. The total of all CSDs in a province should not be used to calculate provincial totals.
Other resources
Rural Canada Business Profiles: Interactive Dashboard
Learn more
To find more rural and small town Canada products, visit:
Rural Canada Statistics Portal
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