TL;DR: India’s unincorporated economy is far larger and more geographically varied than the usual picture of formal companies suggests. ASUSE 2025 estimates 7.92 crore establishments and 12.5 crore workers, with nearly half of all establishments concentrated in just five states. Yet most are tiny: the average establishment has only 1.61 workers, and just 13.1% employ hired workers. The district-level data also reveals striking differences in how local economies work. Tourism and manufacturing hubs tend to have larger workforces per establishment, while many businesses elsewhere remain owner- or family-run. Female ownership varies just as sharply, from 79.95% in Nirmal to 4.8% in Bageshwar.

Context

India’s economic story is often told through large companies, factories and formal businesses. But a large part of everyday economic activity happens through much smaller establishments: shops, workshops, traders, small manufacturers and service businesses.

The Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises (ASUSE) provides one of the most comprehensive official pictures of this part of the economy. The 2025 survey covered unincorporated establishments in manufacturing, trade and selected services across rural and urban India, excluding construction.

Based on these estimates, for the first time, the National Statistical Office has published estimates at the district level. The data covers the estimated number of establishments and workers, ownership structure, female ownership, registration, hired-worker employment and economic indicators such as GVA per establishment and GVA per worker.

Today’s story looks at the district-level data to unpack where India’s unincorporated economy is concentrated, and what it looks like from one district to another.

Who Compiles This Data?

The data is sampled from the ASUSE 2025 report, compiled by the National Statistics Office (NSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI). This study covers both rural and urban areas, and estimates presented in the report are based solely on the Central Sample, i.e. the sample selected, surveyed, processed and tabulated by the NSO, MoSPI, under ASUSE 2025.

Where can I download Clean & Structured Data on ASUSE?

Clean, structured, and ready-to-use datasets from the Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises (ASUSE) can be downloaded from the collection on Dataful. The collection includes datasets covering establishments, employment figures, Gross Value Added (GVA), ownership, location, nature of operation, registration characteristics, digital adoption statistics, wages and emoluments, among others.

Key Insights

What “unincorporated” means:

An enterprise is considered unincorporated if it is not registered under the Companies Act (1956/2013) or the LLP Act, 2008. This includes proprietorships, partnerships, cooperatives, trusts and self-help groups (SHGs).

The Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises (ASUSE) focuses on this part of the economy, while excluding sectors and establishments already covered by other major surveys. This includes registered factories covered by the Annual Survey of Industries (ASI), large corporates covered by the CAPEX survey, as well as construction and agriculture. It also excludes electricity units registered with the Central Electricity Authority and government departments, government companies, government societies and public sector units.

The enterprises captured by ASUSE are generally smaller in size in terms of scale of operations, economic contribution and productivity than those covered by surveys such as ASI and CAPEX. Although ASUSE captures a substantial share of MSME units, it is not specifically an MSME survey. It does not directly ask enterprises whether they fall into the micro, small or medium categories under the Ministry of MSME’s definition. Instead, the number of MSMEs is estimated from ASUSE data using proxies such as turnover and investment in plant and machinery, based on criteria developed in consultation with the Ministry of MSME. These estimates should therefore be interpreted in that context.

India’s Small-Business Economy is concentrated in a few districts

According to ASUSE 2025, the estimated number of establishments in the unincorporated manufacturing, trade and other services sectors rose to 7.92 crore, up from 7.34 crore in 2023–24. But these establishments are not evenly spread across the country. A large share is concentrated in a handful of states. Uttar Pradesh has an estimated 1.09 crore establishments, followed by West Bengal with 1.04 crore, Maharashtra with 65.7 lakh, Tamil Nadu with 48.5 lakh and Bihar with 45.3 lakh. Together, these five states account for 47.7% of India’s unincorporated establishments, meaning nearly half are located in just five states.

The concentration becomes even more striking at the district level. North 24 Parganas in West Bengal has the highest estimated number, at 16.60 lakh establishments, followed by South 24 Parganas with 10.30 lakh and Kolkata with 8.84 lakh. North 24 Parganas also has the largest estimated workforce among these districts, with about 21.3 lakh workers.

But the geography extends well beyond the country’s familiar corporate centres. Surat has an estimated 8.51 lakh establishments and Ahmedabad 7.30 lakh, while Prayagraj has 6.32 lakh. In the south, Telangana’s Ranga Reddy district has 6.93 lakh establishments, followed by Bengaluru Urban with about 5 lakh. Pune has around 6.01 lakh establishments, with Mumbai Suburban and Thane also among Maharashtra’s major concentrations. As a result, the unincorporated establishments map looks quite different from a map of India’s formal corporate economy.

The Unincorporated Sector is mostly a One- or Two-person Economy

The survey estimates around 12.5 crore workers across India’s unincorporated sector. With an average of just 1.61 workers per establishment, the sector is overwhelmingly made up of own-account businesses and very small family-run enterprises.

But the size of the workforce varies sharply across districts. Botad in Gujarat has the highest average, with 4.54 workers per establishment, followed by Tiruppur in Tamil Nadu (2.91), Faridabad in Haryana (2.88) and North Goa (2.58). These are places where manufacturing, trade or hospitality clusters create a greater need for hired workers. At the other end, several districts in Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur have fewer than 1.05 workers per establishment, pointing to businesses largely run by their owners or families.

The difference becomes particularly revealing when viewed across states and Union Territories. The average rises from around 1.23 workers per establishment in Assam and Jharkhand to 2.60 in Goa and Puducherry, more than twice as high. At first glance, this might look like a simple story about prosperity: richer places have larger businesses. But that interpretation misses what the numbers are really capturing. This is as much a trade-type gradient as an income gradient. A tailoring unit or small repair shop can often operate with one person, or with the help of family members. Tourism and hospitality businesses work differently. These businesses naturally require more workers even when they remain unincorporated. The worker-to-establishment ratio therefore tells us about the structure of local economies and not simply their level of wealth.

Women’s Business Ownership varies sharply across India

Women account for 27.1% of proprietary establishments nationally, but the national figure conceals striking pockets of female ownership. At the district level, some parts of the country have economies where women are far more likely to be the registered proprietor.

Northern Telangana stands out most clearly. Nirmal records female ownership in 79.95% of proprietary establishments, followed by Jagtial (74.62%), Nizamabad (71.31%), Rajanna Sircilla (68.56%) and Kamareddy (61.74%). Together, these districts form a striking belt where women own a majority of proprietary establishments. The pattern is consistent with the region’s long-standing presence of beedi rolling and other home-based economic activities, where women have traditionally played a major role. The data therefore captures not just women’s participation in work, but the extent to which that participation translates into formal ownership of an enterprise.

A similar pattern appears in Manipur, where female ownership reaches 71.7% in Imphal East, 67.8% in Bishnupur and 60.8% in Thoubal. The contrast with Uttarakhand is stark. The state has the lowest average share of female-owned proprietary establishments, at 11.96%. In Bageshwar and Rudraprayag, female ownership falls to just 4.8% and 5.2%, respectively.

Incidentally, Bageshwar and Rudraprayag also have some of the country’s lowest shares of female workers (<15%). In both these districts, women appear to be underrepresented at both ends of the enterprise structure: they are less likely to be running the business and less likely to be part of its workforce.

The contrast suggests that women’s economic participation is shaped not simply by how many businesses exist in a place, but by the kinds of local economic activities and social structures through which those businesses operate.

Why does it matter?

The unincorporated sector is where a large part of India’s everyday economy actually operates, but its scale can obscure how small most individual businesses are. The new district-level ASUSE data makes these differences visible for the first time. It shows that business density, employment intensity and women’s participation follow very different regional patterns. A district with millions of establishments may still have very few employers, while a tourism or manufacturing hub may have far more workers per enterprise. Similarly, national averages on women’s enterprise ownership conceal districts where women own most businesses and others where they are largely absent. Understanding these local patterns matters for designing MSME policy, credit, skilling, formalisation and employment interventions that fit the economy on the ground.

Key Numbers

• 7.93 crore: estimated unincorporated non-agricultural establishments in ASUSE 2025.

• 16.60 lakh: establishments in North Twenty Four Parganas (West Bengal), the highest among districts.

• 21.3 lakh: estimated workers in North Twenty Four Parganas (West Bengal).

• 80%: female-owned proprietary establishments in Nirmal (Telangana), the highest share

• 47%: hired-worker establishments in North Goa (Goa), the highest share highlighted.