In 2021, new business filings with the Oregon Secretary of State's Office grew 14.5% to 90,104.
The boom arrived after the figure ticked up 3% in 2020 as workers, pushed from jobs by the pandemic, perhaps decided to open their own enterprises.
New limited liability companies led the way, growing 20.9% last year to account for 62% of total filings. New assumed business names grew only 2.3% and represented 27% of filings while new Oregon corporations expanded by 16.7%, comprising 11% of the total.
The Census Bureau also tracks business formation based on applications for federal Employer Identification Numbers. "High-propensity business applications" are those deemed to have a higher likelihood of creating a going concern based on factors such as being filed by a corporation that is hiring employees. Oregon fared well over the last year for high-propensity applications, up 21.8% in the 12 months ended in February to 17,292.
As such, Oregon outperformed the U.S. overall, where applications rose by 14.5%.
Nevertheless, the state underperformed the U.S. and its neighbors in the year ended February 2020, declining by 8.7%, and only grew high-propensity applications 2.1% in the subsequent 12 months, roughly the first year of the pandemic.
Businesses seem to appear faster than they disappear. In February 2020, before Covid-19 struck locally, Oregon had 219,981 LLCs, 128,179 ABNs and 116,674 corporations active in the Secretary of State's registry.
Almost two years later in January 2022, it had 258,322 LLCs, 128,599 ABNs and 117,474 corporations.
