68% of US solopreneurs have less than six months of savings, or no financial safety net at all, according to Simply Business’s 2025 Power of One survey of 1,023 solopreneur customers. That vulnerability sits underneath a genuinely large and growing slice of the economy: the Census Bureau counted 30.4 million American businesses with no employees in 2023, generating nearly $1.8 trillion in revenue.
The gap between scale and stability is the story here. Running a business alone has never been more common, and for most of the people doing it, has never been more financially exposed.
How many solopreneurs are there in the US?
30.4 million Americans ran a nonemployer business in 2023, up from 29.8 million in 2022 and 24 million in 2015, according to the US Census Bureau’s Nonemployer Statistics (NES). A nonemployer business is defined as one with no paid employees other than the owner, and annual receipts of at least $1,000, that files a federal income tax return. These 30.4 million businesses generated close to $1.8 trillion in revenue in 2023, roughly 6.4% of US GDP.
Figure 1: Growth in US nonemployer (solopreneur) businesses, 2015 to 2023. Source: US Census Bureau Nonemployer Statistics.
Growth accelerated sharply after the pandemic: nonemployer establishment counts rose 4.9% in 2021 and 4.7% in 2022, among the fastest growth rates the Census Bureau has recorded in nearly two decades. The three largest sectors by business count are Professional, Scientific and Technical Services, Transportation and Warehousing, and Real Estate, Rental and Leasing.
How financially exposed are solopreneurs?
Scale has not translated into stability. 68% of solopreneurs have less than six months of savings or no safety net at all, and 48% have gone without income for more than a month at some point, according to Simply Business’s survey of 1,023 US solopreneurs, fielded June 16 to 30, 2025.
Figure 2: Financial vulnerability indicators among US solopreneurs. Source: Simply Business, 2025 Power of One survey, n=1,023.
| Financial vulnerability indicator | Share of solopreneurs |
|---|---|
| Less than 6 months of savings or no safety net at all | 68% |
| Gone without income for more than a month | 48% |
| Have considered giving up on the business | 34% |
| Of those who considered quitting, cited financial stress as the top reason | 72% |
That last row is the clearest signal in the data: it is not lack of ambition or market demand pushing solopreneurs toward the exit, it is the absence of a financial cushion. A single slow month can threaten a business that a payroll-backed small business would absorb without incident.
Why do solopreneurs consider quitting?
61% of solopreneurs underestimated how hard it would be to manage every part of the business alone, and 42% have given up time with family and friends to keep the business running, per Simply Business’s survey. A little over a third, 34%, have seriously considered giving up on the business altogether, and among that group, 72% point to financial stress or inconsistent income as the deciding factor rather than burnout or lost interest in the work itself.
Figure 3: How income instability tracks through to solopreneurs considering quitting. Framework based on Simply Business’s 2025 Power of One survey findings.
The emotional and financial pictures are tangled together rather than separate problems. A solopreneur who underestimated the workload is more likely to also be the one skipping an emergency fund, since there is no spare capacity, in either time or income, to build one while also running every function of the business alone.
What motivates people to go solo in the first place?
More than half, 53% of solopreneurs, started their business driven by passion rather than a specific financial plan, per Simply Business’s survey. That motivation runs headlong into the operational reality once the business is live: the same survey found 61% underestimated the difficulty of doing every job themselves, from sales to bookkeeping to customer support.
Figure 4: How solopreneurs’ pre-launch expectations compare to their lived experience, by theme. Framework based on Simply Business’s 2025 survey findings, not a single numeric study.
That mismatch between “financial stability” sitting low on the lived-reality axis and “passion for the work” sitting high on both axes explains why so many solopreneurs stay in a business that is financially precarious: the work itself is still delivering on what they signed up for, even when the income is not. If you are building a solo business around client work or digital products, a clear terms and conditions agreement is one of the few parts of “running everything alone” you can set up once and stop worrying about, which matters more when your own time is the scarcest resource in the business.
Who owns America’s solo businesses?
Women owned 42.7% of US nonemployer businesses in 2022, about 12.7 million businesses generating $411.6 billion in receipts, according to the Census Bureau’s Nonemployer Statistics by Demographics series. Hispanic-owned firms accounted for 17.2%, or 5.1 million businesses, with $235.7 billion in receipts.
Figure 5: Share of US nonemployer businesses by owner demographic, 2022. Source: US Census Bureau Nonemployer Statistics by Demographics.
Figure 6: Key milestones in the growth of the US solopreneur economy. Sources: US Census Bureau Nonemployer Statistics, Simply Business 2025 Power of One survey.
Nonemployer businesses are not a niche corner of the economy. At 30.4 million strong and growing faster than employer businesses in most recent years, they are a structural feature of how Americans now earn a living, which is exactly why the financial-vulnerability numbers above deserve more attention than a typical “side hustle” trend piece would suggest. For how solopreneurs’ web presence compares to small businesses with staff, see our small business website data for 2026, and for the funding side of going it alone, see our startup founding and funding data for 2026.
The Bottom Line
The 30.4 million figure tells you the solopreneur economy is real and growing. The 68% figure tells you it is running without a net. Both are true at once, and neither cancels the other out: scale does not automatically produce stability when every business function, including financial planning, sits on one person’s plate. If you are one of the 30.4 million, the operational parts of the business you can systematize are worth systematizing first, starting with the legal basics. A clear terms and conditions agreement that spells out payment terms, scope, and liability protects the income you do have, which matters even more when 68% of your peers have no cushion if a client pays late or a project falls through.
Frequently Asked Questions
What percentage of solopreneurs have no financial safety net? 68% of US solopreneurs have less than six months of savings or no safety net at all, according to Simply Business’s 2025 Power of One survey of 1,023 solopreneur customers. 48% have also gone without income for more than a month at some point.
How many solopreneurs are there in the United States? 30.4 million Americans ran a business with no paid employees in 2023, up from 29.8 million in 2022 and 24 million in 2015, according to the US Census Bureau’s Nonemployer Statistics. These businesses generated nearly $1.8 trillion in revenue in 2023, about 6.4% of US GDP.
Why do solopreneurs consider quitting their business? 72% of solopreneurs who have considered quitting cite financial stress or inconsistent income as the primary reason, per Simply Business’s 2025 survey. 34% of all solopreneurs surveyed have considered giving up, and 61% underestimated how hard it would be to manage every part of the business alone.
Who owns America’s solo businesses? Women owned 42.7% of US nonemployer businesses in 2022, about 12.7 million businesses generating $411.6 billion in receipts, and Hispanic-owned firms accounted for 17.2%, or 5.1 million businesses, per the Census Bureau’s Nonemployer Statistics by Demographics series.
Sources and References
- US Census Bureau. (2025). “Number of U.S. Nonemployers Grew Faster Than Employer Businesses Nearly Every Year From 2012 to 2023.” 2023 Nonemployer Statistics.
- US Census Bureau. (2024). “2022 Nonemployer Statistics.” 29.8 million nonemployer businesses, $1.7 trillion in receipts.
- US Census Bureau. (2025). “Nonemployer Statistics by Demographics.” Women- and Hispanic-owned business figures, 2022 data.
- Simply Business. (2025). “The Power of One: 2025 Solopreneur Report.” Survey of 1,023 US solopreneur customers, fielded June 16 to 30, 2025.
- PR Newswire. (2025). “Simply Business Publishes New Report Highlighting Trends and Perspectives of U.S. Solopreneurs.”
Note: All figures verified as of August 2026. Census Bureau nonemployer data is released on a roughly two-year lag, so 2023 is the most current year available; survey figures are refreshed as Simply Business publishes newer editions of its report.
