Canada self-employment expansion plans outpace contraction as client-finding pressures rise

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Canada self-employment growth 2026

Highlights

27.6% of self-employed Canadians in July 2026 plan to expand their business over 12 months, outnumbering the 8.0% expecting contraction or closure.
The self-employment rate averages 12.9% in 2026, with 2.7 million Canadians self-employed, while sector shares shift away from agriculture and construction toward health care and transportation.
Client-finding difficulties rise as 19.4% of self-employed in July 2026 disagree it is easy to get new clients, increasing from 13.2% in 2022 and 16.2% in 2025.

July 2026 survey highlights business plans and motivations

As reported by Statistics Canada, 27.6% of self-employed workers in July 2026 say they plan to expand their business over the following 12 months, more than triple the 8.0% who expect to scale down, close the business, or stop working.

The figures come from a supplement to the Labour Force Survey covering self-employed workers aged 15 to 69. Opportunity-related motivations remain more common than necessity-related ones, with 36.8% citing autonomy over hours, pay or work location as their main reason for being self-employed, followed by pursuing work they are passionate about at 14.7% and working in their field of expertise at 12.0%. Smaller shares say they are self-employed because they could not find employee work, 5.8%, or because they lost a job as an employee, 1.6%.

Expansion plans vary by industry and region. Among the five largest self-employment industries in 2026, the highest shares planning to expand are in finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing at 33.6%, construction at 30.3%, and professional, scientific and technical services at 28.8%, while health care and social assistance, 19.0%, and transportation and warehousing, 22.8%, are lower. Provincially, Alberta posts the highest expansion share at 35.1%, ahead of British Columbia at 29.2%, while the Atlantic provinces combined record the lowest at 22.0%.

Stable self-employment rate masks sector shifts and benefit gaps

In the first nine months of 2026, an average of 2.7 million Canadians are self-employed in their main job, equal to 12.9% of the employed population aged 15 and older on a not seasonally adjusted basis. After falling from 15.1% in 2020 to 13.0% in 2023, the self-employment rate has held at 12.9% since 2024.

The share of self-employed workers with employees declines slightly to 24.9% in the first nine months of 2026 from the 2025 average, while the proportion with an incorporated business remains stable in recent years and reaches 48.9%. Professional, scientific and technical services remains the largest industry for self-employment at 18.0%, followed by construction at 13.4% and health care and social assistance at 12.7%. Compared with the 2022 average, self-employment becomes less concentrated in agriculture and construction, while the shares in health care and social assistance and in transportation and warehousing increase.

Market conditions also appear more difficult for many workers. In July 2026, 19.4% of self-employed workers disagree that it is generally easy to find new clients, up from 13.2% in 2022 and 16.2% in 2025. Landed immigrants, 25.7%, are more likely than Canadian-born workers, 15.8%, to report this difficulty, and men, 21.6%, are more likely than women, 15.8%, to say finding new clients is not easy.

Benefit coverage remains well below employee levels. In July 2026, 39.4% of self-employed workers report supplementary health coverage, 33.3% dental coverage, and 22.9% disability insurance coverage, compared with 63.8% of employees who have access to either medical or dental benefits through their job and 52.8% who have disability benefits. Self-employed women are more likely than men to report supplementary health care and dental coverage, while disability insurance coverage is nearly the same for both groups.

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