US Census Bureau

Business Dynamics Statistics API

Time series API covering U.S. business establishment births, deaths, job creation, and job destruction from 1978 to the latest reference year. Supports breakdowns by firm age, firm size, sector, state, and metro area via the `/data/timeseries/bds` endpoint.

Business Dynamics Statistics API is one of 7 APIs that US Census Bureau publishes on the APIs.io network, described by a machine-readable OpenAPI specification.

This API exposes 1 machine-runnable capability that can be deployed as REST, MCP, or Agent Skill surfaces via Naftiko.

Tagged areas include Government, Economics, Business, and Employment. The published artifact set on APIs.io includes API documentation, an OpenAPI specification, and 1 Naftiko capability spec.

GitHub OpenAPI

Documentation

📖
Documentation
https://www.census.gov/data/developers/data-sets/business-dynamics.html

Specifications

⚙
OpenAPI
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/us-census-bureau/refs/heads/main/openapi/census-bds-api-openapi.yml

Other Resources

🔗
NaftikoCapability
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/us-census-bureau/refs/heads/main/capabilities/census-bds-timeseries.yaml

OpenAPI Specification

census-bds-api-openapi.yml Raw ↑ 
openapi: 3.1.0
info:
  title: Business Dynamics Statistics API
  description: |
    Time-series API providing annual measures of establishment and firm
    dynamics for the United States — births, deaths, expansions, contractions,
    job creation, and job destruction — from 1978 through the latest reference
    year. Supports breakdowns by firm age, firm size, sector, state, and metro
    area.

    Endpoint family: `/data/timeseries/bds`.
  version: '2026-05-25'
  contact:
    name: Census Bureau Center for Economic Studies
    url: https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/bds.html
  license:
    name: Creative Commons Zero 1.0 (Public Domain)
    url: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
  termsOfService: https://www.census.gov/data/developers/about/terms-of-service.html
servers:
- url: https://api.census.gov/data
  description: Census Data API production base
security:
- ApiKeyQuery: []
paths:
  /timeseries/bds:
    get:
      summary: Query Business Dynamics Statistics Time Series
      description: |
        Query the BDS time series. Use `YEAR` in the `get` clause and add it to
        the `for` clause or filter with `time`, `STATE`, `MSA`, `NAICS`, `SECTOR`,
        `EAGE`, `FAGE`, `EMPSZES`, `FSIZE`, and other dimension variables.
      operationId: queryBdsTimeseries
      parameters:
      - name: get
        in: query
        required: true
        description: Variables to retrieve (for example `YEAR,FAGE,FIRMS,ESTABS,NET_JOB_CREATION`).
        schema:
          type: string
      - name: for
        in: query
        required: false
        description: Geography clause (for example `us:*` or `state:06`).
        schema:
          type: string
      - name: time
        in: query
        required: false
        description: Time filter (for example `2022`, `from 2018 to 2022`).
        schema:
          type: string
      - name: key
        in: query
        required: true
        schema:
          type: string
      responses:
        '200':
          description: BDS time-series result set
          content:
            application/json:
              schema:
                type: array
                items:
                  type: array
                  items:
                    type: string
  /timeseries/bds/variables.json:
    get:
      summary: Get BDS Variable Dictionary
      operationId: getBdsVariables
      security: []
      responses:
        '200':
          description: Variable dictionary
          content:
            application/json:
              schema:
                type: object
components:
  securitySchemes:
    ApiKeyQuery:
      type: apiKey
      in: query
      name: key