U.S. Census County & ZIP Business Patterns Scraper

Keyless bulk export of official Census County and ZIP Code Business Patterns by geography, NAICS, establishments, employment, payroll and company-size bands. Built for site selection, market sizing, sales planning and economic research.

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What does the U.S. Census County & ZIP Business Patterns Scraper do?

This Actor turns U.S. Census County & ZIP Business Patterns into a structured dataset you can actually work with. You give it a search, it walks the result pages, and it writes one clean row per record into your dataset — ready to export as JSON, CSV or Excel, or to pull straight from the Apify API.

It runs on plain HTTP with no browser and no login, which keeps it fast and cheap, and it works the same on a free account as on a paid one. Every field documented below came from a real verification run of this Actor, so what you read here is what you get.

The current build returns 25 populated fields per record, of which 20 are present on virtually every row.

Who is it for?

• Analysts who need U.S. Census County & ZIP Business Patterns data as a spreadsheet instead of a browser tab.
• Operations and research teams tracking how U.S. Census County & ZIP Business Patterns listings change over time.
• Developers wiring a live data feed into an internal tool or database.
• Growth and sales teams building prospect and market lists from public data.
• AI teams assembling structured training or grounding data.

Use cases

• Export a full U.S. Census County & ZIP Business Patterns search into a spreadsheet for analysis.
• Track how prices, volumes or availability move week over week by scheduling the run.
• Feed a dashboard or internal database with a repeatable, structured source.
• Build a market map by running several searches in one job.
• Enrich an existing list by matching on the identifiers in the output.

Why use this U.S. Census County & ZIP Business Patterns Scraper?

• 🔑 No API key and no login — nothing to authenticate, nothing to expire.
• 📦 25 verified fields — every column below was confirmed against live output.
• 📄 Real pagination — it walks the result set instead of returning the first screen.
• 🎯 Bounded runs — caps in the input stop the job exactly where you want, so the bill is predictable.
• 💸 Tiered pay-per-result — you pay per row, and higher Apify plans pay less per row.
• 📊 Export anywhere — JSON, CSV, Excel, HTML, the API, or any Apify integration.

What data can you extract?

One row per record. These columns come from a live run, with the share of rows that carried a value:

Field	Type	Typically filled	Description
annualPayrollNoiseFlag	string	100%	Annual payroll noise flag
annualPayrollThousands	number	100%	Annual payroll thousands
countyFips	number	100%	County fips
countyName	number	100%	County name
dataYear	number	100%	Data year
employment	number	100%	Employment
employmentNoiseFlag	string	100%	Employment noise flag
establishments	number	100%	Establishments
establishmentsUnder5Employees	number	95%	Establishments under5 employees
firstQuarterPayrollNoiseFlag	string	100%	First quarter payroll noise flag
firstQuarterPayrollThousands	number	100%	First quarter payroll thousands
fullCountyFips	number	100%	Full county fips
geographyLevel	string	100%	Geography level
naicsCode	string	100%	Naics code
naicsDescription	string	100%	Naics description
recordId	string	100%	Record id
scrapedAt	string	100%	Scraped at
sourceFileUrl	string	100%	Source file url
sourceUrl	string	100%	Source url
stateFips	string	100%	State fips
establishments100To249Employees	number	22%	Establishments100 to249 employees
establishments10To19Employees	number	68%	Establishments10 to19 employees
establishments20To49Employees	number	53%	Establishments20 to49 employees
establishments50To99Employees	number	30%	Establishments50 to99 employees
establishments5To9Employees	number	70%	Establishments5 to9 employees

Fields below 90% are genuinely optional at the source — U.S. Census County & ZIP Business Patterns does not publish them for every record. An empty value means the source did not show it, not that extraction failed.

Output example

{
  "annualPayrollNoiseFlag": "G",
  "annualPayrollThousands": 1978666,
  "countyFips": "001",
  "countyName": "Alameda County, California",
  "dataYear": 2023,
  "employment": 63199,
  "employmentNoiseFlag": "G",
  "establishments": 4350,
  "establishmentsUnder5Employees": 1350,
  "firstQuarterPayrollNoiseFlag": "G",
  "firstQuarterPayrollThousands": 470167,
  "fullCountyFips": "06001",
  "geographyLevel": "county",
  "naicsCode": "72----",
  "naicsDescription": "Accommodation and Food Services",
  "recordId": "2023-county-06001-72----",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-09-11T09:41:24.573Z",
  "sourceFileUrl": "https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp/datasets/2023/cbp23co.zip",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp/data/datasets.html",
  "stateFips": "06",
  "establishments100To249Employees": 36,
  "establishments10To19Employees": 1058
}

How to use

1. Open the Actor and fill in the search fields — the defaults below are a working example.
2. Set the result cap so the run stops where you want it.
3. Click Start, then export from the Output tab or pull the dataset through the API.

{
  "year": "latest",
  "geographyLevel": "county",
  "stateFips": [
    "06"
  ],
  "naicsPrefixes": [
    "72"
  ],
  "minEstablishments": 5,
  "maxResults": 10000
}

Input parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
year	string	latest	Use latest or a four-digit reference year from 1986 onward.
geographyLevel	string	county	County and ZIP Industry provide NAICS detail; ZIP Totals provides one summary row per ZIP.
stateFips	array	[]	Two-digit state FIPS codes such as 06 for California or 48 for Texas.
countyFips	array	[]	Five-digit state+county FIPS codes, for example 06037 for Los Angeles County.
zipPrefixes	array	[]	Match one or more full ZIP codes or ZIP prefixes.
naicsPrefixes	array	[]	Industry prefixes such as 72, 541 or 621.
legalFormCodes	array	[]	Exact Census legal-form-of-organization codes.
minEstablishments	number	–	Only keep geography-industry cells with at least this many establishments.
minEmployment	number	–	Only keep cells with at least this published employment count.
minAnnualPayroll	number	–	Filter using annual payroll converted from the source's thousands-of-dollars unit.
maxResults	integer	1000	Maximum unique Census Business Patterns records saved.

Tips for best results

• Broad searches return the deepest result sets; very narrow ones run out after a page or two.
• Use the result cap rather than the page cap when you want a predictable bill.
• Schedule the same input daily or weekly to build a history instead of a one-off snapshot.
• Lower the concurrency if you see retries — the source rate-limits aggressive crawling.
• Run several searches in one job instead of one search with a huge page count.
• Empty optional fields are normal; filter on the columns that matter to you after export.
• Deduplicate on the identifier column if you merge several runs together.
• Keep the proxy setting on the default unless the source blocks your region.

Integrations

Push results straight into Google Sheets, Slack, Zapier, Make, Airtable or any Webhook. You can also schedule the Actor and have each run append to the same dataset, which is how you turn a single export into a time series.

API usage

Replace <YOUR_TOKEN> with your Apify API token.

cURL

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/logiover~us-census-county-business-patterns-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_TOKEN>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"year": "latest", "geographyLevel": "county", "stateFips": ["06"], "naicsPrefixes": ["72"], "minEstablishments": 5, "maxResults": 10000}'

Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient('<YOUR_TOKEN>')
run = client.actor('logiover/us-census-county-business-patterns-scraper').call(run_input={"year": "latest", "geographyLevel": "county", "stateFips": ["06"], "naicsPrefixes": ["72"], "minEstablishments": 5, "maxResults": 10000})
for item in client.dataset(run['defaultDatasetId']).iterate_items():
    print(item)

Node.js

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: '<YOUR_TOKEN>' });
const run = await client.actor('logiover/us-census-county-business-patterns-scraper').call({"year": "latest", "geographyLevel": "county", "stateFips": ["06"], "naicsPrefixes": ["72"], "minEstablishments": 5, "maxResults": 10000});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

Use with AI agents (MCP)

This Actor is reachable through the Apify MCP server, so an AI agent can call it as a tool. Point the agent at https://mcp.apify.com and ask it something like "pull the first 200 companies from U.S. Census County & ZIP Business Patterns and summarise them" — it receives the same structured rows you would get from the UI.

FAQ

Do I need a U.S. Census County & ZIP Business Patterns account or API key?

No. The Actor reads publicly available pages only. There is nothing to authenticate and no credentials to rotate.

Does it work on the free plan?

Yes. Every feature is available on a free Apify account — nothing is gated behind a paid tier. Pricing is per result, and higher plans simply pay less per row.

How many companies can I get in one run?

As many as the search exposes. Raise the page and result caps together; the run stops at whichever limit it reaches first.

Why did I get fewer rows than I asked for?

The search ran out of records. That is normal for narrow queries — broaden the search or add more searches to one run.

Why are some fields empty?

U.S. Census County & ZIP Business Patterns does not publish every attribute for every record. The table above shows how often each field is filled in practice.

What export formats are supported?

JSON, CSV, Excel, HTML and RSS from the Output tab, plus the Apify API and any integration you connect.

How fast is it?

It is pure HTTP with no browser, so a page of results typically takes a second or two.

Can I schedule it?

Yes. Use the Apify scheduler to run it on any interval and append each run to the same dataset.

Does it use a proxy?

It routes through Apify Proxy by default. You can switch groups or supply your own proxies in the input.

Is the output schema stable?

Yes. Field names and types are fixed, so downstream pipelines will not break between runs.

How often is the data refreshed?

Every run reads the live source. There is no cache, so the data is as current as the website itself.

What if the site changes its layout?

Open an issue on the Issues tab and it gets fixed — the Actor is actively maintained.

Is it legal?

This Actor reads only publicly available pages on U.S. Census County & ZIP Business Patterns — the same content any visitor sees without logging in. It does not bypass authentication and does not collect private data. You remain responsible for how you use the output: respect the source's terms of service, applicable copyright, and data-protection law such as GDPR where personal data is involved.

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