Almost 98% of all businesses are small businesses.
There were 2,506,012 small businesses operating in Australia in June 2022.
The number of small businesses increased by 164,172, or 7%, from the year before.
A common definition of small business used by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) are those businesses with a turnover of $10 million or less. Using this definition, 98% of Australian businesses are small businesses.
The vast majority (93%) of these businesses have a turnover of less than $2 million.
Table 1: Business numbers by annual turnover, June 2022
Annual turnover
|
Number of businesses
|
% of total businesses
|
Zero to less than $50,000
|
699,077
|
27.2
|
$50,000 to less than $200,000
|
823,844
|
32.1
|
$200,000 to less than $2m
|
856,169
|
33.3
|
$2m to less than $5m
|
108,939
|
4.2
|
$5m to less than $10m
|
39,227
|
1.5
|
$10m or more
|
42,644
|
1.7
|
Total
|
2,569,900
|
100
|
Source: ABS Counts of Australian Business 8165.0, Table 17, June 2022 and ASBFEO calculations.
Chart 1: Number of Australian businesses measured by employment size in June 2022

Source: ABS Counts of Australian Business, Table 13a, August 2022 and ASBFEO calculations (excludes businesses that are not registered for GST).