969 new Sacramento businesses this summer, and nearly three consultants for every restaurant

Between July 1 and September 28, 2026, 969 businesses listed a start date with the City of Sacramento. We counted them by type from the city's own records and compared them with the same weeks of 2025.

Sacramento doesn't issue a general business license. Every business that operates in the city pays a Business Operations Tax instead, and the city publishes the list of those accounts on its open data portal, updated daily. Each record includes a business type and the date the business started.

So on September 29, 2026, we pulled every account with a start date from July 1 through September 28, and the same 13 weeks of 2025.

• 969 businesses started in those 13 weeks this year, against 1,073 in the same weeks last year.
• Consultants led, with 62. Restaurants had 21, so there were nearly three new consultants for every new restaurant.
• Medical offices jumped from 5 to 25, the largest rise on the list.
• General services fell from 52 to 31, the largest drop.

One caution before the table. This year's counts are still filling in: 183 of the 969 accounts were still pending when we looked, and applications keep arriving after a business starts. Last year's counts have had a year to settle. So the rises are the stronger signal, and some of the drops may shrink.

What started, by type

Type (as the city names it)	Jul 1 to Sep 28, 2026	Same weeks, 2025	Change
Consultant	62	55	+7
Contractors, general	44	37	+7
Contractors, sub	42	47	-5
Service provider	39	34	+5
Retail sales, general	39	35	+4
House cleaning and janitorial	38	30	+8
Contractors, construction	33	31	+2
Service, general	31	52	-21
Short-term rental	30	44	-14
Retail sales, online	27	44	-17
Medical offices	25	5	+20
Cottage food operation	24	14	+10
Restaurants	21	31	-10
Counseling, therapy and psychology	20	15	+5
Automotive repair	19	27	-8

The table shows the 15 largest types this year. We left out the city's "Other" group and a short list of categories outside our work.

What grew

Medical offices had the biggest jump, from 5 to 25. Filing delays can only make this year's counts smaller, so this rise is real.

Home kitchens grew too. Cottage food operations, the permit for making certain foods at home to sell, went from 14 to 24.

Cleaning and contracting kept climbing. House cleaning and janitorial services rose from 30 to 38, and general contractors from 37 to 44.

Smaller lines moved the same way. Trucking and hauling went from 9 to 15, and taxicabs from 1 to 13.

What shrank

General services dropped the most, from 52 to 31, followed by online-only retail, from 44 to 27, and short-term rentals, from 44 to 30. Restaurants went from 31 to 21.

Our read: if the online retail number is still near 27 when the pending accounts clear, it's a real change.

Where they started

339 of the 969 records show "ON FILE" where the ZIP code would be, so this count covers the other 630. The ZIP codes with the most new businesses were:

ZIP	New businesses
95816	50
95811	46
95815	42
95826	35
95814	29

If you're opening in Sacramento

Our read, for anyone about to join this list:

1. Check your category's line. If you're opening a medical office, five times as many started this summer as last. That's more new names in the same searches, so how patients find you matters from the first week.
2. Register before you open. Every business in the city needs a Business Operations Tax certificate, and the city mails it only after zoning approves the location. Our free City of Sacramento launch checklist lists the forms, fees and dates, with the official source for each: https://miningwells.com/locations/sacramento-county/sacramento
3. Look again in a few weeks. The city updates this list daily, so the pending accounts will show where the summer totals actually land.

You can run this count for your own city

Sacramento isn't the only city that publishes its business list. If yours publishes business license or business tax data, the same count takes an afternoon:

• filter to a start date range;
• group by business type;
• compare with the same weeks a year earlier.

Check how many records are still pending before you trust a drop.

How we counted

• Source. City of Sacramento, "Business Operation Tax Information", on the city's open data portal. The city describes it as the list of businesses that operate in Sacramento, updated daily.
• When. Pulled September 29, 2026, at 1:01 PM Pacific. The data was last updated on September 28.
• Window. Accounts with a business start date from July 1 through September 28, 2026, compared with July 1 through September 28, 2025.
• Types. The city's own labels, with the punctuation tidied. We merged nothing.
• Status. Of the 969, 744 were active, 183 pending, 38 closed and 4 inactive. All are counted, since each listed a start date in the window.
• What this is not. It's a count of tax accounts, not of storefronts. One owner can hold more than one account, and a start date is what the business reported, not an opening day.

At Mining Wells Marketing Agency, you will never be passed to a salesperson, an account manager or a junior marketer fresh out of college. Senior operators work on every account, start to finish.

Jessica Wells is co-founder of Mining Wells Marketing Agency (https://miningwells.com), which works with businesses nationwide. For how we work with businesses in the Sacramento area, see our Sacramento page: https://miningwells.com/locations/sacramento-county/sacramento.

Sources

• City of Sacramento, Business Operation Tax Information (open data): https://data.cityofsacramento.org/datasets/f4ee567a01fb4b1d95303c8446a999fa_0/about
• City of Sacramento, Business Operations Tax: https://www.cityofsacramento.gov/finance/revenue/business-operations-tax