End of year report highlights small businesses flourishing in small cities and growing in retail and education sectors.
JERSEY CITY, N.J., Dec. 18, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Small businesses across the U.S. flourished in small cities in 2025, according to a new survey released by Bluevine, the country’s largest digital banking platform for small business*.
The study–compiled from internal data collected across more than 200,000 active Bluevine accounts and supported with a national survey of more than 1,067 small business owners–showed that while America’s largest cities received the most Bluevine account applications, small and medium cities dominated the list of the five fastest-growing metros. When measured within a statistically significant level**, Indianapolis (+361%), Columbus, Ohio (+200%), Washington D.C. (+175%), Sacramento (+147%), and Phoenix (+120%) showed the most year-over-year relative growth in 2025 Bluevine account applications. Of particular note: Washington D.C. saw application levels explode at roughly the same time large-scale federal layoffs were announced, finishing 2025 as the metro with the third-most applications behind New York and Los Angeles.
Across all metros, the study showed a rebound year for small businesses following a 2024 that was marred by uncertainty. In particular, a handful of industries showed remarkable growth in year-over-year funded business checking accounts with administrative services (47.6%), education (42%), retail (41.7%), management (39.2%), and health and wellness businesses (39.1%) showing the highest growth within Bluevine internal data.
Despite consistent growth from 2024-2025, not all sectors recovered at the same pace. When measuring baseline growth across the more than 200,000 active accounts, Bluevine noted that the growth of the legal industry (34.7% slower than baseline growth), real estate industry (24.2%), accounting industry (22.8%), accommodations industry (19.1%), and the finance industry (12.1%) all grew slower than the all-industry Bluevine average.
While the newly released study data showed resilience for small businesses in the United States, there were still signs of economic volatility affecting respondents: Forty-one percent of externally surveyed owners cited higher operating expenses as their top challenge, while 31% grappled with rising costs of goods sold and 23% reported cash flow difficulties. Inflation affected four in five owners, forcing 61.3% of owners to raise prices, while others reported renegotiating supplier agreements, or switching suppliers entirely. Additionally, some surveyed participants noted a more personal toll from day-to-day ownership: Nearly half (49.2%) of respondents said they regularly questioned whether running their business was worth it, 21.6% said they don’t take a full day off per week, 60.3.% reported delayed paying themselves, and 77.5% reported major sacrifices affecting their health, relationships, and financial stability.
For additional information on the study, you can read more on Bluevine’s blog, here.
*As compared to publicly available data on the number of lifetime customer accounts held by other U.S. banking platforms dedicated to small business, as of March 2025.
**Only metro areas that averaged more than 70 Bluevine account applications per month were considered statistically significant.
Methodology
This survey was conducted by Centiment Audience of 1,067 company owners, founders, partners, CEOs, presidents, or managing directors of U.S. businesses with annual revenue between $50,000 and $5,000,000 for Bluevine between November 4th and 10th, 2025. Data is unweighted, and the margin of error is approximately +/-3% for the overall sample with a 95% confidence level.
Internal data for the report was measured from more than 200,000 active Bluevine accounts.
About Bluevine
Bluevine is the largest small business banking platform in the U.S., serving as the financial operating system for startups and small businesses. Through a single account, companies can earn more, save more, borrow, and manage their money whenever and wherever they do business – without ever stepping into a branch. Accessible through one dashboard, its product suite integrates high-yield business checking, accounts payable, debit and credit cards, loans, and lines of credit. Since 2013, Bluevine has served over 750,000 customers, delivered over $17 billion in loans, and is currently trusted with over $1.6 billion in managed customer deposits.
Bluevine is backed by leading private and institutional investors, including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures, 83North, Citi Ventures, ION Crossover Partners, SVB Capital, Nationwide Insurance, and M12 (Microsoft’s Venture Arm). Bluevine is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking Services provided by Coastal Community Bank, Member FDIC. Lines of credit are issued by Celtic Bank. For more information, please visit bluevine.com or follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and X.
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SOURCE Bluevine
