Business types in the retail trade industry in New Zealand

As at February 2025, number of enterprises

The following information applies to all values in the table. Year as at February: 2025, Industry: G, Measure: Enterprises
Business type	Number of enterprises
Incorporated and unincorporated society or association	42
Registered limited liability company (non co-op)	25,347
Other business types	3
Partnership	1,245
Joint venture and consortium	42
Individual proprietorship	2,529
Trust or estate	141
Branch of company incorporated overseas	81
Charitable trust	75

Definitions

Enterprises: A business or service entity operating in New Zealand. It can be a company, partnership, trust, estate, incorporated society, producer board, local or central government organisation, voluntary organisation or self-employed individual.
Employee Count: Employee count is a head-count of all salary and wage earners for the February reference month.
Business Type: Business type is the legal status of an enterprise. An enterprise is an institutional unit in it's capacity as a producer of goods and services; an enterprise may be a corporation, a quasi-corporation, a non-profit institution, or an incorporated enterprise.

For more information

http://datainfoplus.stats.govt.nz/Item/nz.govt.stats/bdb02aa2-866e-418f-83e8-342234867a0f

Limitations of the data

There are a number of limitations associated with business demography data. These limitations include:
- Non-coverage of 'small' enterprises that fall below the economic significance criteria on the Statistical Business Register (SBR).
- Lags in recording business births and deaths.
- Difficulties in maintaining industrial and business classifications for smaller firms (that are primarily maintained using administrative data).

Inclusions

Business demography statistics are limited to economically significant individual, private-sector and public-sector enterprises that are engaged in the production of goods and services in New Zealand. These enterprises are maintained on the Statistical Business Register (SBR), which generally includes all employing units and those enterprises with GST turnover greater than $30,000 per year.

Changes to data collection/processing

Up to 2015 business demography series was based on the Stats NZ Longitudinal Business Frame (LBF).
From 2016 business demography series is based on the Statistical Business Register (SBR).

Data provided by

Stats NZ

Dataset name

Business Demography Statistics: Enterprises by business type and industry 2025

Webpage:

https://explore.data.stats.govt.nz/vis?tm=Enterprises%20by%20business%20type&pg=0&hc[Measure]=Enterprises&snb=2&df[ds]=ds-nsiws-disseminate&df[id]=BDS_BDS_005&df[ag]=STATSNZ&df[vs]=1.0&dq=TOTAL..TOTAL.ENT_COUNT&ly[rw]=YEAR_BDS_BDS_005&to[TIME]=false

How to find the data

Data is displayed at URL provided. To create this dataset, click on download and 'Unfiltered data in tabular text (CSV)'.

Import & extraction details

File as imported: Business Demography Statistics: Enterprises by business type and industry 2025

From the dataset Business Demography Statistics: Enterprises by business type and industry 2025, this data was extracted:

Rows: 2-13,367
Column: 13
Provided: 13,366 data points

This data forms the table Business - Enterprises and employees by business type and industry 2000–2025.

Dataset originally released on:

October 30, 2025

About this dataset

Business demographic statistics give an annual snapshot (as at February) of the structure and characteristics of New Zealand businesses.

Business types in the retail trade industry in New Zealand

As at February 2025, number of enterprises

About this data

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