The glossary below defines terms included in the Nonemployer Statistics (NES) program.

The following abbreviations and symbols are used with the NES data:

CSAs consist of two or more adjacent metropolitan and/or micropolitan areas that have substantial employment interchange. Because CSAs represent groupings of metropolitan and/or micropolitan statistical areas, they should not be ranked or compared with individual metropolitan and micropolitan statistical areas.

Generally, an establishment is a single physical location at which business is conducted, services are rendered, or industrial operations are performed. However, NES counts each distinct business income tax return as a firm. For NES, the terms firm, business, and establishment are used interchangeably. Since a nonemployer business may operate from its owner's home address or from an unspecified physical location, most geography codes are derived from the business owner's mailing address, which may not be the same as the physical location of the business activity.

LFO is derived from administrative records data  sources. The following LFOs are included in the NES program:

• C-Corporation and other corporate legal forms of organization: An incorporated business that is granted a charter recognizing it as a separate legal entity having its own privileges and liabilities distinct from those of its members.  
• Partnership:  An unincorporated business where two or more persons join to carry on a trade or business with each having a shared financial interest in the business.
• Sole proprietorship:  Also referred to as a "individual proprietorship," an unincorporated business with a sole owner. Also included in this category are self-employed persons.
• S-Corporations: A form of corporation where the entity does not pay any federal income taxes. The corporation's income or losses are divided among and passed to its shareholders. The shareholders must then report the income or loss on their own individual income tax returns.  

MSA is a core area containing a substantial population nucleus, together with adjacent communities having a high degree of economic and social integration with that core.

Each metropolitan statistical area must have at least one urbanized area of 50,000 or more inhabitants. Each micropolitan statistical area must have at least one urban cluster of at least 10,000 but less than 50,000 population.  Metropolitan and micropolitan statistical areas can be collectively referred to as "Core Based Statistical Areas" (CBSAs); however, NES uses the term MSA.

Noise infusion is a method of disclosure avoidance in which a random noise multiplier is applied to certain data values for each business prior to table creation. Disclosure protection is accomplished in a manner that results in a relatively small change in the majority of tabulated values.

A nonemployer business is one that has no paid employees, has annual business receipts of $1,000 or more ($1 or more in the Construction industry), and is subject to federal income taxes.

NAICS is the standard used by Federal statistical agencies in classifying business establishments for the purpose of collecting, analyzing, and publishing statistical information related to the U.S. business economy.

Includes gross receipts, sales, commissions, and income from trades and businesses, as reported on annual business income tax returns. Business income consists of all payments received for services rendered.

The composition of nonemployer receipts may differ from receipts data published for employer establishments. Nonemployer receipts may include commissions or earnings. In contrast, for employers the sales and receipts items published (for example, in the Economic Census) represents only the value of the goods involved in the transaction.  

The receipts size class provides the number of establishments by the dollar value of reported receipts at the U.S. level only. The receipts size class is derived from the original receipts reported before noise is applied. This may cause a slight difference between the tabulated total establishment value and the value shown for a receipts size class. Receipts size class was first published with the 2009 reference year.

The reference year is the year for which the data are published. NES data are released approximately 17 months after the conclusion of the reference year.