USA Immigration News

U.S. Immigrants Own 18 Percent of Small Business, Report Shows

According to a new report by the Fiscal Policy Institute, 18 percent of small businesses in the U.S. belong to U.S. immigrants.

The report shows that U.S. immigrants account for 18 percent of businesses with fewer than 100 employees; and U.S. residents born outside the country make up 13 percent of the country population. The number of small businesses rose to 4.9 million in 2010, 58 percent up from 3.1 million in 1990. 12 percent of these companies belong to immigrants, the report shows. The Latham, New York-based research organization, also reveals that immigrants started 538,551 new small businesses during the two decades, equaling one-third of the total businesses set up in that period.

"I don't think immigrants are super-entrepreneurs," indicated David Dyssegaard Kallick, director of the institute’s Immigration Research Initiative and author of the report. "But I do see that immigrants are playing an important and growing role. Immigrant businesses often bring new energy to the urban, suburban and rural landscape of America."

U.S. immigrants from Mediterranean and Middle Eastern countries are more likely to own a small business than other immigrants, the report shows. Sixteen percent of immigrants from Greece owned a small business while only 1 percent of Mexican immigrants were small business owners.

In terms of industry fields, foreign-born entrepreneurs accounted for 28 percent of small businesses in the leisure and hospitality fields, the largest percentage of any broad industry. Immigrants also made up a major share of small taxi, dry cleaning and gas station owners.

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