Business Dynamics Statistics API

openapi: 3.1.0
info:
  title: Business Dynamics Statistics API
  description: |
    Time-series API providing annual measures of establishment and firm
    dynamics for the United States — births, deaths, expansions, contractions,
    job creation, and job destruction — from 1978 through the latest reference
    year. Supports breakdowns by firm age, firm size, sector, state, and metro
    area.

    Endpoint family: `/data/timeseries/bds`.
  version: '2026-05-25'
  contact:
    name: Census Bureau Center for Economic Studies
    url: https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/bds.html
  license:
    name: Creative Commons Zero 1.0 (Public Domain)
    url: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
  termsOfService: https://www.census.gov/data/developers/about/terms-of-service.html
servers:
- url: https://api.census.gov/data
  description: Census Data API production base
security:
- ApiKeyQuery: []
paths:
  /timeseries/bds:
    get:
      summary: Query Business Dynamics Statistics Time Series
      description: |
        Query the BDS time series. Use `YEAR` in the `get` clause and add it to
        the `for` clause or filter with `time`, `STATE`, `MSA`, `NAICS`, `SECTOR`,
        `EAGE`, `FAGE`, `EMPSZES`, `FSIZE`, and other dimension variables.
      operationId: queryBdsTimeseries
      parameters:
      - name: get
        in: query
        required: true
        description: Variables to retrieve (for example `YEAR,FAGE,FIRMS,ESTABS,NET_JOB_CREATION`).
        schema:
          type: string
      - name: for
        in: query
        required: false
        description: Geography clause (for example `us:*` or `state:06`).
        schema:
          type: string
      - name: time
        in: query
        required: false
        description: Time filter (for example `2022`, `from 2018 to 2022`).
        schema:
          type: string
      - name: key
        in: query
        required: true
        schema:
          type: string
      responses:
        '200':
          description: BDS time-series result set
          content:
            application/json:
              schema:
                type: array
                items:
                  type: array
                  items:
                    type: string
  /timeseries/bds/variables.json:
    get:
      summary: Get BDS Variable Dictionary
      operationId: getBdsVariables
      security: []
      responses:
        '200':
          description: Variable dictionary
          content:
            application/json:
              schema:
                type: object
components:
  securitySchemes:
    ApiKeyQuery:
      type: apiKey
      in: query
      name: key