News

April 12, 2018

The 2017 Economic Census is Coming

The Economic Census is the U.S. Government’s official five-year measure of American business and the economy. It is conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, and response is required by law.

Starting with the 2017 Economic Census, response will be entirely paperless. The Economic Census will mail out information on how to access the electronic instrument in May 2018 to the nearly 4 million businesses, including large, medium, and small companies representing all U.S. and Island Area locations and industries. Respondents will be asked to provide a range of operational and performance data for their companies.

Ready to Report or Need Assistance?

To report online:

  1. Sign-in or Register at https://portal.census.gov
  2. Add your authentication code
  3. Report by clicking on “REPORT NOW.”  You can return to your account over multiple sessions to complete.
  4. For assistance completing this survey, please log-in to your Census Bureau account at https://portal.census.gov and send us a secure message or call the customer help line at 1-800-233-6136, Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Eastern time.
  5. Please visit How Do I Get Started? for additional information.
  6. Please visit How-To Videos for information on Logging into the Respondent portal, via your Census Bureau account.

Respondent Materials

To help you prepare for online reporting, click on the link below and then the appropriate survey questions and instructions (if applicable).

(All surveys are in Adobe PDF file format and are for informational purposes only)

Preview Survey Questions and Instructions

https://bhs.econ.census.gov/ombpdfs/

Letters

Surveys with “(Classification)” in the Survey Title:

pdf file   Initial Letter [<1.0 MB]
pdf file   Followup Letter [<1.0 MB]

Concordance of 2012 Product Codes to 2017 NAPCS-Based Codes

The concordance (mapping) of 2012 Economic Census Product Line Codes to the 2017 NAPCS-Based (North American Product Classification System) Collection Code Structure, which are used in Item 22, Detail of Sales, Shipments, Receipts, or Revenue, can be found here:
Concordance of 2012 Product Codes to 2017 NAPCS-Based Codes

Authority

Title 13, United States Code (U.S.C.), Section 131, requires businesses and other organizations included in the survey to answer the questions and submit a response.

Confidentiality

Title 13, United States Code, Section 9, requires the Census Bureau to keep your information CONFIDENTIAL and can use your responses only to produce statistics.

The Census Bureau is not permitted to publicly release your responses in a way that could identify your business, organization, or institution. Per the Federal Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2015, your data are protected from cybersecurity risks through screening of the systems that transmit your data.

Survey Legitimacy

Below are a few common items you can use to verify the legitimacy of this survey:

  1. Ensure the Web address provided in the letter is a “census.gov” domain.
  2. Correspondence will contain reporting instructions and a toll-free number for survey assistance.
  3. On the log-in screen, a warning message should be present stating the respondent is accessing a U.S. Government computer.
  4. After clicking on the “Report Now” button in the Respondent Portal, the OMB Number and OMB Approval Expiration information will appear in the upper right on all screens of the electronic reporting instrument. The bottom of the screen should have a link for the “Burden Statement” which also contains the OMB eight-digit number.