NZ Business Demography at February 2026

Business demography statistics provide an annual snapshot of the characteristics of New Zealand businesses. The statistics cover economically significant enterprises that produce goods and services in New Zealand.

Key facts

Provisional data showed that at February 2026:

• New Zealand had 620,150 enterprises, an increase of 0.2 percent from February 2025; this followed a 0.7 percent increase in the previous February year
• the number of paid employees in these enterprises (not an official employment statistic) was 2.4 million, down 0.2 percent from February 2025
• these enterprises had 656,980 business locations, an increase of 0.2 percent from February 2025
• of the 19 industries, 10 had more enterprises and employees compared with February 2025
• of the 16 regions, seven had more business locations than a year earlier, and five had more employees.

The enterprise counts in this series are influenced not only by enterprise births and deaths but also by those enterprises that change their economic significance status between reference years.

DataInfo+ has more information about business demography statistics coverage and economic significance criteria.

Leading employer health care and social assistance industry continues to grow

• For the sixth consecutive year, the health care and social assistance industry retained its position as the highest-employing industry, with 296,500 employees and 26,690 enterprises at February 2026 (1.1 percent more employees and 3.5 percent more enterprises than at February 2025).
• The education and training industry had 11,110 enterprises and 208,860 employees at February 2026, up 2.2 percent and 0.8 percent respectively since February 2025.
• The accommodation and food services industry had 2.6 percent more enterprises and 0.9 percent fewer employees at February 2026 than a year earlier.
• The number of employees in the construction industry continued to decline from its recent peak of 212,900 at February 2024, dropping to 195,600 employees at February 2026.
• Both the retail trade and wholesale trade industries had 1.2 percent fewer enterprises and 1.4 percent fewer employees at February 2026 than a year earlier.
• The rental, hiring, and real estate services industry, consisting mostly of residential and commercial property operators, continued to have the largest share (21 percent) of all enterprises in New Zealand.

Canterbury adds more business locations and employees than any other region

The Canterbury region had 3,900 (1.2 percent) more employees and 1,590 (1.9 percent) more business locations at February 2026 than in February 2025. This was the biggest increase in the number of employees and business locations of any region. Canterbury had a 14 percent share of all employees and a 13 percent share of all business locations in the country.

The Otago region had similar growth with the number of employees increasing by 1.3 percent and business locations rising by 1.7 percent in the year ended February 2026.

The Auckland region, which accounted for 35 percent of all business locations and employees, saw a decrease of 0.4 percent in the number of employees in the year ended February 2026. The number of business locations increased by 0.2 percent.

The Wellington region had 277,000 employees and 61,480 business locations at February 2026, down 1.6 percent and 1.7 percent respectively from February 2025.

More enterprises in the non-employer category

A dominant majority of enterprises in New Zealand (74 percent at February 2026) operate without any (paid) employees. Compared with February 2025, there were 1,640 (0.4 percent) more enterprises in this 'non-employer' category at February 2026.

At February 2026, there were 161,560 enterprises with one or more employees, 0.2 percent fewer than a year earlier.

There were 2,810 'large enterprises' (those with 100 or more employees) at February 2026, down 0.7 percent from February 2025. These enterprises had 1,204,500 employees, accounting for 49 percent of all employees in New Zealand.

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More data

Use Infoshare to access monthly time-series data on business counts.

Subject category: Businesses
Group: Business Count Indicators - BCI

Interactive map

Use this tool to explore the average growth for geographic units and employees during the last five years by more detailed geographic areas:

Average annual change for geographic areas between 2021 and 2026

Definitions and metadata

Business demography statistics - DataInfo+ has information about this data, including general methodology about the collection, the terms used, and data accuracy.

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ISSN 1174-1988

Next release

New Zealand business demography statistics: At February 2027 will be released in October 2027.