Latino or Hispanic business owners capitalized on economic opportunity between 2017 and 2024, creating thousands of firms that benefited the communities they serve. In 2022, Latino or Hispanic individuals owned 7.9% of all employer businesses (those that employ at least one person)—a total of 465,202 firms.

Employer businesses are often community anchors that local governments and individuals rely on as engines of economic growth and employment hubs. In 2022, Latino or Hispanic-owned businesses employed 3,550,230 people and generated over $653 billion in total revenue—an increase of 14.1% and 18.9%, respectively, since 2021. This growth represents real and positive change, mirroring strong overall growth for minority business owners, which helped communities weather economic uncertainty, including the COVID-19 economic downturn.

But Latino or Hispanic individuals are still underrepresented as employer business owners compared to their share of the U.S. population. As mentioned above, Latino or Hispanic-identifying individuals owned 7.9% of employer businesses in 2022, despite comprising 19.1% of the population. In contrast, and as we’ve identified in previous reports, white Americans are overrepresented, representing 81.1% of all employer business owners yet only 74% of the U.S. population.

As this report demonstrates, growth in Latino or Hispanic-owned businesses hasn’t come at the expense of other race or ethnic groups; it has been additional, and there’s still room to grow. If the share of Latino or Hispanic-owned employer businesses equaled the share of Americans who identify as Latino or Hispanic, there would be 812,440 more businesses generating a combined $1.1 trillion in revenue and $250 billion in payroll.

This report, the second in the Center for Community Uplift’s series on Latino or Hispanic-owned businesses, analyzes Annual Business Survey (ABS), American Community Survey (ACS), and Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) data from 2017 to 2024 to understand recent trends for these firms.

We find that:

Latino or Hispanic-owned businesses have grown at an average annual rate of 7.7%, surpassing the 0.46% growth rate for all employer businesses.
Between 2017 and 2024, Latino or Hispanic-owned businesses grew in 204 of 227 (89.9%) U.S. metro areas.
Despite this growth, Latino or Hispanic-owned businesses are underrepresented compared to their share of the population in most metro areas—demonstrating the potential for economic growth and job creation that could stem from supporting these business owners.
While most of this business growth can be explained by a strong post-pandemic economy, federal and state policies may have also driven growth.
Despite being underrepresented, Latino or Hispanic employers supported local economies across the US, particularly in small and midsized cities

In 2024, 19.1% of the American population (63.5 million people) identified as Latino or Hispanic, representing a large, growing, and incredibly diverse demographic. Latino or Hispanic communities vary by race, immigration status, migration timing, cultural background, and indigeneity. This diversity means that generalization can obscure the types of barriers the community faces in starting and growing a business. In reality, factors such as access to intergenerational wealth and resources can vary substantially between race and place, and influence the picture of opportunity at the regional and metro area level.

In cities across the country, Latino or Hispanic businesses represent large shares of local economies. As Map 1 shows, the cities with the highest shares of Latino or Hispanic-owned employer firms are concentrated in Southwestern and Floridian cities with large Latino or Hispanic-identifying populations. Of the 10 cities with the highest share of Latino or Hispanic-owned employer business, the top six are in Texas.1 There and in other states, including New Mexico and Arizona, Latino or Hispanic-owned businesses represent large segments of relatively small economies.

In El Paso and Laredo, Texas, for example, Latino or Hispanic-owned employer businesses represent 50% or more of total employers.
Latino or Hispanic employers are also large components of dense, racially and ethnically diverse economies. This includes Washington, D.C., Chicago, New York, Houston, and Los Angeles. Miami—a historic hub of Cuban cultural heritage—had close to 60,000 Latino or Hispanic-owned businesses in 2022, the largest number of any metro area, exceeding totals for New York and Los Angeles.

Yet even in midsized and large Latino or Hispanic-majority cities where Latino or Hispanic-owned businesses represent a large component of total businesses, these business owners are still underrepresented. For example, in El Paso, Texas, where 55% of employer businesses are Latino or Hispanic-owned, there are close to 1.6 times more Latino or Hispanic-identifying residents (83% population share). Similarly, in Yuma, Ariz., 66% of the population identifies as Latino or Hispanic, but only 28% of employer business owners do. While in general, cities with higher shares of Latino or Hispanic residents tend to have higher shares of Latino or Hispanic-owned employer businesses, Figure 1 shows that even in these cities, these owners are underrepresented.

Despite modest business growth nationally, the number of Latino or Hispanic-owned businesses has grown

Despite disparities with population shares, Latino or Hispanic business ownership is on the rise. Between 2017 and 2022, the number of Latino or Hispanic employers increased by 44.4% (see Figure 2). Just between 2021 and 2022, the number of Latino or Hispanic employers increased by 14.6%, to a total of 465,202 employer businesses nationally. This growth eclipses overall employer business creation, which grew by just 0.46% annually and 2.3% overall during this period.