South Florida Local Business and Chambers Report: September 2026

This report covers the four counties of South Florida (Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe, which includes the Keys), with statewide Florida figures where county data is not published. It looks at business formation, small business credit, the labor market, business distress and the chamber of commerce sector. The figures come from public federal, state and county data, and each figure is dated to the period it describes, because several of the most useful datasets run a year or more behind.

Key findings

• Florida logged 514,279 new business applications from January to August 2026, up 14.4% from the same months of 2025 and 84% above the same months of 2019.
• The share of those applications likely to become employers fell: high-propensity filings were 27.7% of the total and down 1.9% year over year.
• The four South Florida counties produced 259,023 business applications in 2025, down 1.6% from 2024 but still 50% above their 2019 level.
• Miami-Dade saw 48.4 business applications per 1,000 residents in 2025, against 27.6 for Florida as a whole.
• South Florida businesses received 774 SBA 7(a) loans from January to June 2026, down 20.8% year over year.
• Business bankruptcy filings in the Southern District of Florida totaled 1,009 in the twelve months ending in June 2026, up 27.4% from 792 a year earlier.
• Unemployment in Broward and Palm Beach rose to 4.6% and 4.8% in July 2026, while Miami-Dade fell to 2.7% in August 2026.
• 68.7% of South Florida's employer establishments in 2023 had fewer than five employees.
• The IRS lists 241 chambers of commerce or business leagues in South Florida ZIP codes, and the median Florida chamber that reports revenue takes in $161,663 a year.

Business formation: Florida is still filing, the counties have leveled off

The statewide numbers are strong. Florida recorded 514,279 business applications from January to August 2026, up 14.4% from 449,577 in the same months of 2025, and 84% above the 280,231 filed in those months of 2019. August alone brought 55,602 applications, up 6.3% from August 2025, and over the twelve months to August 2026 the state filed 712,436, up 13.6% from the prior twelve months. Florida accounts for 11.8% of all U.S. business applications so far this year, and 11.5% in August on a seasonally adjusted basis.

• Miami-Dade135,758 applications
• Broward72,422 applications
• Palm Beach48,510 applications
• Monroe2,333 applications

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Business Formation Statistics

The quality of that growth is less clear. Of the applications filed from January to August 2026, 142,389 were high-propensity filings, the kind likely to hire employees, and that group was down 1.9% year over year even as total filings climbed. They make up 27.7% of the total. For an owner reading these numbers, the practical meaning is that much of the new activity is people setting up one-person businesses and side ventures, and fewer of them are building payrolls.

County data runs a year behind the state series, so the latest local picture is for 2025. That year the four South Florida counties produced 259,023 applications, down 1.6% from 2024 and 40.0% of all Florida applications. Miami-Dade residents filed 135,758 (down 2.0% from 2024, up 58% versus 2019), Broward filed 72,422 (down 1.4%, up 40% versus 2019), and Palm Beach filed 48,510 (down 1.0%, up 46% versus 2019). Monroe was the only county to grow, with 2,333 applications, up 3.3% from 2024 and 31% above 2019. The region is well above where it was before 2020, but in 2025 it was running flat to slightly down while the state kept rising.

Miami-Dade is the outlier on density. It saw 48.4 applications per 1,000 residents in 2025, against 27.6 for Florida, and Miami-Dade's own local business tax roll points the same way. The 2026 roll, as published in late September, lists 194,342 receipts, with 17,598 (9.1%) flagged as new businesses, and the largest category among those new receipts is "PROFESSIONAL" with 3,374. The same roll shows 7,160 businesses with a start date from January to August 2026, against 8,047 from the same months of 2025 that are still on the roll. Those two numbers are not a clean comparison, since last year's cohort has had longer to register, so they are best read as a sign that new registrations are steady and not as evidence of a decline.

Who South Florida's businesses are: small, and often self-employed

The typical South Florida employer is very small. The region had 226,542 employer establishments in 2023, 68.7% of which employed fewer than five people, and 90.1% had fewer than 20 employees. For anyone selling to local businesses, or organizing them, this is the market: owners who do most jobs themselves and buy services in small amounts.

Beyond employers there is a much larger layer of self-employment. South Florida counted 1,510,272 nonemployer businesses in 2024, meaning self-employed people with no payroll, averaging $60,290 in annual receipts. In Miami-Dade there are about 8.4 nonemployer businesses for every employer establishment, a preliminary estimate because it pairs 2024 nonemployer counts with 2023 employer counts.

Tax data shows how widespread this is. For tax year 2023, 41.5% of Miami-Dade individual returns reported business or self-employment income on Schedule C, 617,690 returns in all, and South Florida filers submitted 1,181,690 such returns, up 19.8% versus 2019. The income behind many of them is modest: the average Schedule C net business income on South Florida returns was $6,531 in 2023, against $8,121 statewide (a preliminary figure). Many residents run a business on the side, and on average the region's filers net less from it than filers elsewhere in the state.

Business dynamics data for 2023 adds churn to the picture. South Florida opened 26,044 new employer establishments that year while 21,875 closed, a net gain of 4,169 compared with 2,757 in 2019. Put another way, for every 100 establishments that opened, 84 closed. Professional, scientific and technical services added the most, with 4,892 openings. These figures are preliminary, and they describe a region where openings run ahead of closings but where most of the new activity is offset by businesses leaving.

Small business credit: fewer SBA loans reaching the region

SBA lending in Florida slowed in the first half of 2026. The agency approved 2,056 7(a) loans to Florida small businesses from January to June 2026, down 14.3% from 2,398 a year earlier, and those approvals totaled $1,266.6 million, down 6.8%. The average approved loan was $616,075, with a median of $280,000, so the typical loan is much smaller than the average suggests and a few large loans pull the average up. SBA 504 real-estate and equipment loans went the other way, reaching $370.2 million across 313 approvals, up 6.8% year over year.

774 loansSouth Florida 7(a) loans, Jan-Jun 2026

Source: U.S. Small Business Administration

South Florida's share fell faster than the state's. The region's businesses received 774 7(a) loans from January to June 2026, 37.6% of the state total, down 20.8% year over year. Over the twelve months to June 2026, 7(a) lending to South Florida small businesses totaled $810.8 million, down 15.2% from the prior twelve months. An owner planning to borrow through the SBA this year should expect a slower market than a year ago.

Across the state, 28.8% of 7(a) loans in the twelve months to June 2026 went to startups or businesses two years old or younger, and construction took the largest share of loans, at 13.5%. SBA 7(a) and 504 loans approved in Florida in that period were reported to support 44,478 jobs, a preliminary figure as reported by borrowers. On repayment, of the 7,626 Florida 7(a) loans approved in 2022 and 2023, 4.7% had been charged off as of the end of June 2026.

The labor market: Miami-Dade tight, Broward and Palm Beach loosening

The three large counties are moving in different directions. Miami-Dade's unemployment rate was 2.7% in August 2026, down from 3.0% a year earlier. Broward's was 4.6% in July 2026, up from 3.9%, and Palm Beach's was 4.8% in July, up from 4.1% (all not seasonally adjusted). Florida as a whole stood at 4.5% in August 2026, up from 4.0% a year earlier. For employers in Miami-Dade, hiring is likely to stay hard; in Broward and Palm Beach there are more job seekers than a year ago.

• Miami-Dade (Aug 2026)2.7%
• Broward (Jul 2026)4.6%
• Palm Beach (Jul 2026)4.8%
• Florida (Aug 2026)4.5%

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Local Area Unemployment Statistics; Florida Department of Commerce

Payroll growth is positive but slow. Nonfarm payrolls in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metro reached 2,967.1 thousand in August 2026, up 10.4 thousand (+0.4%) from a year earlier, slower than the state's +0.6% gain, which took Florida to 9,994.7 thousand. Leisure and hospitality in the Miami metro did better than the metro overall, growing 1.2% year over year to 343.7 thousand jobs, which matters for the restaurants, hotels and attractions that make up much of the local customer base for service businesses.

Business distress: bankruptcies are rising

Bankruptcy filings are the clearest warning sign in this edition. Business bankruptcy filings in the Southern District of Florida, which covers South Florida and the Keys, totaled 1,009 in the twelve months ending June 30, 2026, up 27.4% from 792 a year earlier. Chapter 11 reorganizations numbered 381, against 296 a year earlier, so a large part of the increase comes from businesses trying to restructure and keep operating. The district accounted for 3.7% of U.S. business bankruptcy filings in that period.

• 12 months to June 2025792 filings
• 12 months to June 20261,009 filings

Source: U.S. Courts, bankruptcy filing statistics

Across Florida's three federal districts the pressure looks similar, with 2,637 business bankruptcies filed in the same twelve months, up 23.1% year over year, though the Southern District's increase was sharper than that. Households are also under strain: consumer bankruptcy filings in the Southern District reached 15,935, up 12.7% year over year. Taken with rising unemployment in Broward and Palm Beach and the drop in SBA lending, these figures suggest that some local businesses are running short of both customers with money to spend and credit to get through a slow patch.

Chambers of commerce: many organizations, modest budgets

The IRS lists 880 Florida organizations classified as chambers of commerce or business leagues, 241 of them in South Florida ZIP codes, among 2,603 501(c)(6) trade and membership groups statewide. The median Florida chamber that reports revenue to the IRS takes in $161,663 a year. Both figures are preliminary, since the classification depends on how organizations are coded in IRS records as of late September.

Set against the business figures above, the arithmetic of chamber membership is hard. The region's businesses are mostly very small, a large share are self-employed people with modest net income, and new formation is concentrated in one-person ventures. A chamber working on a budget near the median has to reach those owners with limited staff, and the owners with the least time and money to spare are the ones most in need of referrals, local visibility and help finding credit in a tighter lending year.

What changed since the last edition

This is the first edition of this report, and future editions will track month-to-month movement against the figures published here. The newest data in this edition covers August 2026 for Florida business applications, payrolls and Miami-Dade and statewide unemployment, July 2026 for Broward and Palm Beach unemployment, June 2026 for SBA lending and bankruptcy filings, 2025 for county business applications, 2024 for nonemployer businesses and 2023 for employer establishments and tax returns, with IRS chamber listings and the Miami-Dade tax roll as published in late September 2026.

Methodology and sources

Business application figures come from the U.S. Census Bureau's Business Formation Statistics, monthly for Florida (through August 2026) and annual for counties (through 2025), with per-resident rates based on Census population estimates. SBA 7(a) and 504 loan figures come from the U.S. Small Business Administration's public loan data (approvals through June 2026, with charge-off status as of the end of June 2026). Unemployment rates come from the Local Area Unemployment Statistics program of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Florida Department of Commerce, and payroll figures from the Current Employment Statistics program.

Establishment counts and size distribution come from the Census Bureau's County Business Patterns (2023). Openings and closings come from the Census Bureau's Business Dynamics Statistics (2023). Nonemployer counts and receipts come from Census Nonemployer Statistics (2024). Schedule C figures come from IRS Statistics of Income county and ZIP code data (tax year 2023). Chamber counts and revenue come from the IRS Exempt Organizations Business Master File, as listed in late September 2026. Bankruptcy figures come from U.S. Courts bankruptcy filing statistics for the twelve months ending June 30, 2026. Miami-Dade tax roll figures come from Miami-Dade County's local business tax receipt data, as published in late September 2026.

South Florida means Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe counties throughout, except for payrolls, which use the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metro area, and bankruptcies, which use the Southern District of Florida.

The following figures are preliminary: jobs supported by Florida SBA loans (reported by borrowers); South Florida establishment openings, closings and the leading sector for openings in 2023; the Miami-Dade ratio of nonemployer to employer businesses (which mixes 2024 and 2023 counts); average Schedule C net business income; the count and median revenue of Florida chambers of commerce; and all figures drawn from the Miami-Dade local business tax roll.

Sources

1. U.S. Census Bureau, Business Formation Statistics
2. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns
3. U.S. Census Bureau, Business Dynamics Statistics
4. U.S. Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics
5. U.S. Small Business Administration
6. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Local Area Unemployment Statistics
7. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Statistics
8. IRS Statistics of Income
9. U.S. Courts, bankruptcy filing statistics

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