Monthly report

New businesses in California: May 2025

1,916 new businesses were formed in California in May 2025, down 1% from April and up 28% from May 2024.

New businesses
1,916
May 2025
Month over month
-1%
vs 1,935
Year over year
+28%
vs 1,493
Most common type
LLC
65% of formations

New California businesses per month

0200,000400,000May 2023: 1,425May 23Jun 2023: 1,391Jul 2023: 1,116Aug 2023: 1,277Sep 2023: 1,141Oct 2023: 1,051Nov 2023: 977Dec 2023: 1,141Jan 2024: 338,7542024Feb 2024: 1,196Mar 2024: 1,361Apr 2024: 1,401May 2024: 1,493Jun 2024: 1,253Jul 2024: 1,326Aug 2024: 1,393Sep 2024: 1,268Oct 2024: 1,378Nov 2024: 1,074Dec 2024: 1,146Jan 2025: 395,7352025Feb 2025: 1,439Mar 2025: 1,929Apr 2025: 1,935May 2025: 1,916

By entity type

  • LLCs1,245 · 65%
  • Corporations489 · 26%
  • Other143 · 7%
  • Nonprofits20 · 1%
  • Limited partnerships15 · 1%
  • LLPs4 · 0%

Top cities in May 2025

Industries (where known)

  • Real Estate40 · 24%
  • Professional & Technical Services26 · 16%
  • Finance & Insurance20 · 12%
  • Information13 · 8%
  • Wholesale Trade10 · 6%
  • Utilities10 · 6%
  • Manufacturing10 · 6%
  • Health Care & Social Assistance8 · 5%
  • Administrative & Support Services6 · 4%
  • Educational Services4 · 2%

Want the businesses, not just the count?

The 1,916 businesses counted above are available as a file: name, address, entity type, formation month and, where the state publishes it, the registered agent.

New Business Monthly

$199 a month

One file every month with the businesses newly registered across 12 states since the file before (more than 170,000 in the latest one). Cancel any time.

New Business File

$1,499 one time

Every business formed in the last 12 months across 15 states: more than 2.2 million records, one CSV per state, with 2 monthly updates included.

The formation date in the files is the year and month. Most records have no email address or EIN.

Get the list of 1,916 new California businesses from May 2025

See the exact count and price as you filter by county, city, ZIP, entity type and formation date. Download a CSV right away and get monthly refreshes. Verified businesses can pay 20% today and the rest over 6 months with Pay-in-6™, building business credit as they pay.

Just formed a business in California?

Before a lender reads your application, its verification system checks your state filing, your exact legal name and your domain against each other. Your business credit history only starts once an account reports it, so it's worth getting both right early.

Run the same checks free with our affiliated company, Peak Discounters. No account, no card, under a minute.

Methodology

Counts are businesses registered with the state of California whose formation (registration) date falls in May 2025 and that appear on the state register in ListRiver's data as of October 12, 2026. Businesses already dissolved are not counted, so older months can drift slightly as records change. City and county refer to the business address on file. More in the methodology.

Cite this report: ListRiver, “New businesses in California: May 2025”, https://listriver.com/reports/new-businesses/california/2025-05. Journalists and researchers are welcome to use these figures with a link.

Put this chart on your website

Free to use on any site, and it updates itself every month. Copy this code and paste it into your page. Preview the chart.