United States Census Bureau County Business Patterns API

openapi: 3.1.0
info:
  title: Census Data American Community Survey County Business Patterns API
  description: The United States Census Bureau Data API provides programmatic access to statistical data from Census Bureau surveys and datasets. The API covers demographic, economic, housing, and social data through a query-based interface. Key datasets include the American Community Survey (ACS), Decennial Census, Population Estimates, County Business Patterns, and many more. Users can query data by geographic level (national, state, county, tract, block group) and filter by hundreds of statistical variables. An API key is optional (up to 500 requests/day without one) but required for higher usage.
  version: 2.0.0
  contact:
    name: Census Developer Forum
    url: https://www.census.gov/data/developers.html
    email: cnmp.developers.list@census.gov
  x-tags:
  - Demographics
  - Federal Government
  - Open Data
  - Statistics
servers:
- url: https://api.census.gov/data
  description: Census Data API
tags:
- name: County Business Patterns
  description: Business establishment and employment data
paths:
  /{year}/cbp:
    get:
      operationId: getCountyBusinessPatterns
      summary: Get County Business Patterns
      description: Returns annual statistics on the number of establishments, employment, first quarter payroll, and annual payroll for most U.S. industries at the national, state, county, and ZIP code level.
      tags:
      - County Business Patterns
      parameters:
      - name: year
        in: path
        required: true
        description: Data year (1986-2022)
        schema:
          type: integer
          minimum: 1986
          maximum: 2022
      - name: get
        in: query
        required: true
        description: Variable names (e.g., NAME,NAICS2017,ESTAB,EMP,PAYANN for business name, NAICS code, establishments, employment, annual payroll)
        schema:
          type: string
      - name: for
        in: query
        required: false
        description: Geographic level and FIPS filter
        schema:
          type: string
      - name: in
        in: query
        required: false
        description: Parent geography constraint
        schema:
          type: string
      - name: key
        in: query
        required: false
        description: Census API key
        schema:
          type: string
      responses:
        '200':
          description: 2D JSON array of business patterns data
          content:
            application/json:
              schema:
                $ref: '#/components/schemas/DataAPIResponse'
        '400':
          $ref: '#/components/responses/BadRequest'
components:
  responses:
    BadRequest:
      description: Bad request — invalid parameters, missing required fields, or variable not found
      content:
        text/html:
          schema:
            type: string
  schemas:
    DataAPIResponse:
      type: array
      description: A 2D JSON array where the first element is an array of variable names (headers) and each subsequent element is an array of corresponding data values. The last elements in each row are typically geography codes.
      items:
        type: array
        description: A single data row (header row or data row)
        items:
          type: string
          nullable: true
      example:
      - - NAME
        - B01003_001E
        - state
      - - Alabama
        - '5024279'
        - '01'
      - - Alaska
        - '733391'
        - '02'
      - - Arizona
        - '7151502'
        - '04'
externalDocs:
  description: Census Data API User Guide
  url: https://www.census.gov/data/developers/guidance/api-user-guide.html