How many people run a business alone? Austria and the world

In Austria, about 376,000 people ran a one-person business (EPU) in 2025. That is 62% of all businesses in the country, and 3.9% more than a year before. Around the world, about 1.5 billion people work for themselves.

I looked these numbers up because I build for this group. I didn't expect it to be the biggest one.

EPU in Austria, 2025

376,000

of all Austrian businesses

62%

run by women

52%

What they do in Austria

Consulting and IT is the second largest group. Many of them are developers, designers and consultants like me, working alone.

Around the world

self-employed in the EU, 2024

26M

US businesses with no employees, 2023

30.4M

of all workers worldwide work for themselves

~46%

In the US, businesses with no employees made $1.8 trillion in sales in 2023. Worldwide, the ILO counts about 1.5 billion self-employed people in 2021. Counted together with micro and small companies, small units hold about 70% of all jobs.

What this means for software

One person is the sales team, the bookkeeper and the support desk at the same time. There is nobody to set up a big system or keep it running. So the software has to work on day one: one place, each number typed once, nothing to configure.

AI and automations help most here. A small business doesn't need more tools. It needs the boring steps between them to happen on their own: an invoice that books the income when it's paid, a form that sends the reply, a report that is ready when the tax advisor asks. That is what I try to build, in EPUfix and for clients.

Sources

• WKO: EPU Zahlen, Daten, Fakten (2025, German)
• Eurostat: Labour market, employment (2024, ages 20-64)
• US Census Bureau: nonemployer businesses (2023 data)
• ILO: Small Matters and World Bank: self-employed, % of employment