These tables contain the combined information of two Census Bureau data products, the 2012 Profile of U.S. Importing and Exporting Companies (the Profile) and the 2012 Survey of Business Owners (SBO). The Profile is an annual database of commingled U.S. exports and business characteristics, compiled from Electronic Export Information filed through the Automated Export System, received from Canada through the Data Exchange, or by paper shipper’s Export Declarations. The SBO, part of the Census Bureau’s Economic Census, provides the only comprehensive, regularly collected source of information on selected economic and demographic characteristics of U.S. businesses and their owners by gender, ethnicity, race, and veteran status.

First produced in 2007, these data provide insights on the ownership and performance of U.S. exporting firms by the characteristics of “classifiable firms,” i.e., businesses whose ownership is classifiable by gender, ethnicity, race, and veteran status.

The official estimate of U.S. exports in 2012 was $1,545.7 billion. Of that total, about $1,381.7 billion was attributable to “identified exporters,” specific companies to which the Census Bureau was able to match specific export transactions. In 2012, there were 305,669 identified exporters.

Of these identified exporters, about 113,000 were either out-of-scope to the SBO or were not able to be identified in the SBO universe. These included firms without reported sales, payroll, and employment; firms operating primarily in out of scope industries, such as crop and animal production; and firms located in American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Of the remaining identified exporters, about 193,000 (weighted) were selected into the SBO sample. All estimates in this report are based on these sampled identified exporters. Estimated total exports for these sampled identified exporters were $1,253.2 billion. Estimated total exports by publicly held firms and those otherwise not classifiable by gender, ethnicity, race, and veteran status were $1,021.5 billion. Estimated total exports for classifiable firms were $231.7 billion.

X – Not published

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, “Profile of U.S. Importing and Exporting Companies, 2012-2013” and 2012 Survey of Business Owners

For more information about exporting companies, see:

https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/Press-Release/edb/2013/index.html#full

More information about confidentiality, sampling error, nonsampling error, and definitions for the 2012 Survey of Business Owners is available on the SBO Methodology page (see link to the right). For Technical Documentation for the Profile of U.S. Importing and Exporting Companies see:

//www.census.gov/foreign-trade/Press-Release/edb/2012/techdoc.pdf