DES MOINES, Iowa – Secretary of State Paul Pate announced Iowans registered the highest amount of new business entities in state history during the 2021 fiscal year. 33,260 new businesses registered with the Secretary of State’s Office between July 1, 2020, and June 30, 2021. The mark breaks the previous record of 24,720 set in Fiscal Year 2019 and is a 35.8 percent increase from last year. This is the fifth time in six years Iowa has set a record for new business filings.
Additionally, Iowans set records for most new business filings in a single month twice in 2021. A new record of 2,940 was set in January, only to be broken again in March with 3,579 new business filings. The previous record for most new business filings in one month was 2,512, in May 2019.
“Despite the pandemic, this data shows that Iowa had a substantial amount of economic activity over the last twelve months,” Pate said. “I’m proud the work that my staff put in so that businesses could get off the ground. Although our lobby was closed to the public, we were here working behind the scenes to keep the wheels of commerce moving in Iowa.”
The Iowa Secretary of State’s office launched the Fast Track Filing system in 2018 to make creating a new business in Iowa faster and easier than ever before. More than 87 percent of new business filings in FY 2021 were done using the Fast Track system. Several other types of business filings have been added since.
