Business insights and impact on the UK economy: 5 February 2026

• In late January 2026, 22% of trading businesses with 10 or more employees reported that they had exported goods, services, or both in the last 12 months; this was broadly stable with late December 2025 and late January 2025.

• Just over a quarter (26%) of trading businesses with 10 or more employees that had exported reported that they had exported less when compared with the same month a year ago, which was the highest proportion since December 2022; 17% reported they exported more during the same period.

• In late January 2026, 27% of trading businesses with 10 or more employees reported that they had imported goods, services, or both in the last 12 months; this was broadly stable with late December 2025 and when compared with the same time last year.

• Around one in five (20%) trading businesses with 10 or more employees that had imported reported that they had imported less when compared with the same month a year ago; 49% reported their importing stayed the same, down 4 percentage points from September 2025.

• Less than a third (31%) of businesses with 10 or more employees that exported in the last 12 months reported in late January 2026 that they were impacted by US tariffs in the last month, with 19% reporting having to absorb costs.

• Nearly a quarter (23%) of businesses with 10 or more employees that imported in the last 12 months reported in late January 2026 that they were impacted by US tariffs in the last month, with 14% reporting having to absorb costs.

The data presented in this bulletin are the final results from Wave 149 of the Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS), which was live from 19 January to 1 February 2026.

Data reported within BICS bulletins and datasets are estimates that are subject to uncertainty, for example, sampling variability and non-sampling error. Further information on quality is available in our Business Insights and Conditions Survey Quality and Methodology Information (QMI), and we regularly update confidence intervals associated with the survey questions.

Single-site weighted regional estimates up to Wave 142 are available in our Business insights and impact on the UK subnational single-site economy: November 2025 article.

The percentage of businesses that reported they were trading in late January 2026 was 94%, with 82% fully trading, and 12% partially trading (for example, trading with reduced hours or staff numbers). Meanwhile, 4% of businesses reported "temporarily paused trading", and 2% reported "permanently ceased trading" as their business's trading status.

Access to microdata

You can access the microdata for Waves 1 to 148 of the Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS) through the Secure Research Service (SRS). The BICS microdata for each wave are released on a rolling basis in the week following the publication of each wave. The microdata are made confidential and do not disclose information on any specific business.

Only researchers accredited under the Digital Economy Act, as explained on the UK Statistics Authority website are able to access data in the SRS. You can apply for researcher accreditation using the People and Projects Service (PPS). For more information, please see our guidance on the Integrated Data Service (IDS) website. 

To conduct analysis with microdata from the SRS, a project application must be submitted to the Research Accreditation Panel (RAP), as explained on the UK Statistics Authority website. Project accreditation applications should be submitted using the Project Accreditation Service for SRS (PASS). For more information, please see our guidance on applying for an accredited research project.

To use the SRS, you must access it through the appropriate safe setting. For more information on the full range of safe setting options, please see our guidance on accessing data securely.

Making our published spreadsheets accessible

Following the Government Statistical Service (GSS) guidance on releasing statistics in spreadsheets, we will be amending our published tables over the next couple of publications to improve the usability, accessibility, and machine readability of our published statistics. If you have any questions or comments, please email us at bics@ons.gov.uk

Reporting unit

The reporting unit is the business unit to which questionnaires are sent. The response from the reporting unit can cover the whole enterprise, or parts of the enterprise identified by lists of local units.

Private sector businesses 

The Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS) is a survey of private sector businesses, meaning that the public sector is not sampled. Some businesses are also excluded; please see the coverage section of this bulletin for more information. 

Trading businesses    

Trading businesses refers to businesses that responded to the survey stating that their trading status was "currently fully trading" or "currently partially trading" only.  

If trading businesses is not specifically specified, the statistics presented refer to businesses that have "not permanently stopped trading". This includes trading businesses and those that said their trading status was "paused trading and intends to restart in the next two weeks" or "paused trading and does not intend to restart within the next two weeks".

More quality and methodology information (QMI) on strengths, limitations, appropriate uses, and how the data were created is available in our Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS) QMI, which was updated on 10 October 2024.

The BICS is voluntary, and the results are official statistics in development. More information is available in our Guide to official statistics in development.

The results are based on responses from the voluntary fortnightly BICS, which captures businesses' views on financial performance, workforce, prices, trade, and business resilience. The Wave 149 survey was live for the period 19 January to 1 February 2026. For full details of the survey questions used, see our Business Insights and Conditions Survey questions: 19 January to 1 February 2026 article.

Coverage

The BICS sampling frame is based on the same industries as our Monthly Business Survey (MBS). The MBS covers the UK for production industries only, and Great Britain for construction, retail, and services industries. The MBS is an important input to the output measure of gross domestic product (GDP), which includes monthly GDP.

For detailed information on the industries covered by the MBS and BICS, see our GDP(o) data sources catalogue. The following are some industries that are excluded from MBS and BICS:

• agriculture

• oil and gas extraction

• energy generation and supply

• public administration and defence

• public provision of education and health

• finance and insurance

For more information on the methodology of producing the BICS, such as weighting, please see our Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS) QMI report.

Strengths and limitations

More quality and methodology information (QMI) on strengths, limitations, appropriate uses, and how the data were created is available in our Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS) QMI.