Source: U.S. Census Bureau, "Business Formation Statistics," Announcements notices, under "Latest Monthly Business Formation Statistics Report": https://www.census.gov/econ/bfs/index.html
Quoted: "As of the January 2026 monthly release, applications associated with internet sales are excluded from the high-propensity (HBA) and corporation (CBA) application series. This methodology change was originally scheduled to occur during the November 2025 monthly release. The HBA and CBA definitions are updated for the entire time series."
Also quoted: "Due to significant differences between 2017 NAICS and 2022 NAICS vintages, the entire time series was restated to 2022 NAICS during this annual update. The January 2026 monthly data publication was the first release using 2022 NAICS."
And: "Due to a scheduled outage of the Internal Revenue Service's online Employer Identification Number (EIN) Assistant from December 30, 2025 until January 5, 2026, applicants were unable to apply for an EIN through…