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September 25, 2025BUSINESS OPENING AND CLOSING, JUNE 2025 Monthly (June 2025 vs May 2025, seasonally adjusted)
The number of active businesses in Nova Scotia edged up by 0.30% from May 2025 to June 2025, rising by 64 to 21,116 active businesses.
Nationally, active businesses grew by 0.08%, with gains in eight provinces. Nova Scotia posted the fastest gain. Newfoundland and Labrador amd Québec reported declines in active businesses.
A business will be classified as 'opening' if it had no employment in the previous month and then has employment in the next month. A business is 'closing' if it had employment in the previous month and no employment in the current month. For opening and closing, the reason could be a permanent change (i.e. business exit) or temporary for reasons such as seasonal operations, capital maintenance or restructuring. Continuing business are those that had employment in both the current and previous month. Active businesses are the sum of continuing and opening business in the current month.
The rate at which business either opened, continued or closed can be examined to see how the number of active businesses has changed. The calculation for the opening, continuing and closure rates are based on the number of active businesses in the previous month.
Most businesses continue operating each month. In June 2025, Nova Scotia's business continuing rate was 95.7%, slightly above the national average (95.3%). Québec reported the highest business continuing rates (96.5%) while Alberta reported the lowest continuing rate (94.8%).
Nova Scotia's business opening rate was 4.6% in June 2025, below the national average of 4.7%. Prince Edward Island had the highest business opening rate (5.5%) while Québec had the lowest (3.4%).
Nova Scotia's business closing rate was 4.2% in June 2025, below the national average of 4.7%. Alberta reported the highest business closing rate (5.2%), while Québec had the lowest business closing rate (3.5%).
Year-over-year (June 2025 vs June 2024)
Compared with June 2024, the number of active businesses was up 0.80% for Nova Scotia. Nationally, active businesses were up 0.18% compared to June 2024. Alberta reported the largest increase in active businesses and Prince Edward Island reported the largest year-over-year percentage decline in active businesses.
The number of active businesses in the Halifax and East Hants Census Metropolitan Area was up 2.1% from June 2024 to June 2025.
Out of 35 CMAs, 23 reported growth in active businesses over the past 12 months. Calgary, Halifax+East Hants, and Edmonton, reported the largest gains in the number of active businesses while Kingston, Thunder Bay, and Barrie reported the largest declines.
Compared with June 2024, ten sectors saw an increase in active businesses in Nova Scotia in June 2025 with the largest percentage increase in utilities. The steepest decline was in information/culture services.
Nationally, the number of active businesses was down for all business sector industries except utilities, arts/entertainment/recreation, administrative/support (including call centers) and accommodation/food, with the largest declines in forestry/fishing and mining/oil/gas.
Statistics Canada has broken out specific data for tourism-related industries. Compared with June 2024, the number of active tourism-related businesses rose 0.7% in Nova Scotia as of June 2025, with gains in all subsectors except accommodations and food/beverage.
Nationally the number of tourism-related businesses edged up 0.3% from June 2024 to June 2025. All sectors reported growth in active businesses except accommodations.
Trends
There has been a downward trend in forestry/fishing active businesses, but in the three months prior to April there was a substantial rise in active businesses. Active businesses in forestry/fishing declined starting in April and up to June from their recent peak in March 2025. Mining/quarrying has been steadily declining, but stabilized in the last spring 2025. Utilities have slowly started growing starting in March 2025.
From 2020-2025, the number of active businesses in construction grew at a steady pace with a slight dip in the end of 2024. Growth resumed in recent months. Manufacturing businesses have remained stable for the past 3 years.
There have been small gains in active businesses for personal/repair businesses in recent months, and small gains in arts/recreation in recent months. Accommodation/food services had a small decline in June, after two months of small gains.
Retail and wholesale businesses have declined in the past two years.
Active businesses in transportation have been fairly stable from 2022, but experienced gain in June 2025. The number of active businesses in real estate/leasing have recently stabilized and administrative/support/call centers have seen modest growth since 2024, but also stabilized in most recent months.
Professional/technical services active businesses have grown in recent months after steady gains in the last year. The decline in finance/insurance/management businesses has slowed, while the number of active businesses in information/culture has been stable.
The source data is seasonally adjusted. The data may not aggregate due to firms being classified into multiple industry or geography.
Source: Statistics Canada. Table 33-10-0270-01 Experimental estimates for business openings and closures for Canada, provinces and territories, census metropolitan areas; Methodology: Business Opening and Closing
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