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Small and family business insights

Small and family businesses1 define our identity as a place, a region and a destination. Small and family businesses create local jobs and provide essential goods and services, both to the community and to larger organisations. They drive regional economic development and make up the backbone of the supply chains of major projects.

1The Small Business Commissioner considers a small and family business to be a business employing less than 20 FTEs (or equivalent) regardless of structure or turnover. The Queensland Small Business Commissioner provides services for small and family businesses that are based in Queensland. This is the Small Business Commissioner’s operational policy in relation to the definition of a small and family business.

Queensland small and family business data

Data¹ Current as of 30 June 2025 Counts of Australian Businesses, including Entries and Exits, July 2021 – June 2025 | Australian Bureau of Statistics

508,862

small and family businesses in Queensland

97.1%

of all businesses in the state are small and family businesses

63.82%

of small and family businesses are non-employing

The 508,862 small and family businesses in Queensland account for 19.2% of all Australian small businesses, compared to 20.53% of Australia’s population that live in the state2.

Of those:

  • 63.82% of small businesses are non-employing
  • 26.64% have 1-4 employees
  • 9.52% have 5-19 employees

Queensland's top 10 small and family business industries

  • Construction (17.2%)
  • Professional, scientific and technical services (12.5%)
  • Rental, hiring and real estate services (11.9%)
  • Agriculture, forestry and fishing (8.3%)
  • Health care and social assistance (7.9%)
  • Transport, postal and warehousing (7.8%)
  • Retail trade (5.7%)
  • Other services (5.6%)
  • Administrative and support services (4.5%)
  • Financial and insurance services (4.2%)

¹ Unless otherwise stated, all numbers are from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2025), Counts of Australian Businesses, including Entries and Exits July 2020 0 June 2025

² Calculated using Australian Bureau of Statistics (2025), Regional Population, Population estimates and components y SA2, 2023 to 2024, Table 120, accessed 1 April 2025

Reports

The QSBC provides the following reports to help inform Queensland small and family businesses and raise public awareness.