Small Business

A small business may be defined as a business with a small number of employees. The legal definition of "small" often varies by country and industry, but is generally under 100 employees in the United States while under 50 employees in the European Union (In comparison, the American definition of mid-sized business by the number of employees is generally under 500 while 250 is for that of European Union). These businesses are normally privately owned corporations, partnerships, or sole proprietorships.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_business

Employment Size of Firms

Table 2a. Employment Size of Employer and Nonemployer Firms, 2004
Introductory text includes scope and methodology. These data are also available by industry and state. Table includes both establishments with payroll and nonemployers. For descriptions of column headings and rows (industries), click on the appropriate underlined element in the table.

Employment size of enterprise	Firms	Estab- lish- ments	Paid employees	Annual payroll ($1,000)	Sales or Receipts ($1,000)
All firms	25,409,525	26,911,465	115,074,924	4,253,995,732	n/a
Nonemployer firms	19,523,741	19,523,741	n/a	n/a	887,001,820
Employer firms	5,885,784	7,387,724	115,074,924	4,253,995,732	n/a
Firms with no employees as of March 12, but with payroll at some time during the year	802,034	803,355	0	40,043,549	n/a
Firms with 1 to 4 employees	2,777,680	2,782,252	5,844,637	165,904,564	n/a
Firms with 5 to 9 employees	1,043,448	1,055,937	6,852,769	195,519,100	n/a
Firms with 10 to 19 employees	632,682	666,574	8,499,681	257,802,789	n/a
Firms with 20 to 99 employees	526,355	692,677	20,642,614	670,418,442	n/a
Firms with 100 to 499 employees	86,538	330,447	16,757,751	587,676,161	n/a
Firms with 500 employees or more	17,047	1,056,482	56,477,472	2,336,631,127	n/a
Firms with 500 to 749 employees	5,695	66,305	3,449,491	130,408,281	n/a
Firms with 750 to 999 employees	2,709	41,835	2,331,851	87,180,964	n/a
Firms with 1,000 to 1,499 employees	2,828	57,479	3,444,427	132,832,629	n/a
Firms with 1,500 to 2,499 employees	2,281	76,491	4,396,430	179,582,908	n/a
Firms with 2,500 employees or more	3,534	814,372	42,855,273	1,806,626,345	n/a
Firms with 2,500 to 4,999 employees	1,739	106,893	6,038,196	262,111,452	n/a
Firms with 5,000 to 9,999 employees	905	120,311	6,378,292	278,396,903	n/a
Firms with 10,000 employees or more	890	587,168	30,438,785	1,266,117,990	n/a

Source: Statistics of U.S. Businesses (See industry and state detail) and Nonemployer Statistics

http://www.census.gov/epcd/www/smallbus.html