How many hours do small business owners work, and how much goes to admin?
Small business owners work about 45 to 52 hours a week, roughly 10 hours more than employees: EU employers worked 46.3 hours in 2025 against 36.6 for employees. Admin takes about a fifth to a third of owner time, by vendor surveys.
Across all 4 studies: up to a median of 60 hours for firms with five or fewer employees.
- Medium confidence
- 4 primary sources
- 2023 to 2025
- Last checked
Every study on one scale
Chart values as text
- Scale: hours a week. Shaded range: 45–52 h; dashed, microbusinesses: 45 h to 60 h.
- Eurostat, EU employers (2025): 46.3 h (employees 36.6 h)
- Time etc (vendor) (2023): 45.5 h
- Sage (vendor) (2024): 51 h
- UENI (vendor) (2024): 60 h median (5 or fewer staff)
Why medium confidence: An official, large-sample source agrees with independent owner surveys using different methods on 45 to 52 hours for owners of employer firms. The admin share rests on two small vendor surveys, and no official source measures it.
Sources
| Study | Creator | Year | Sample | Method | Figure | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Average number of usual weekly hours of work in main job (dataset lfsa_ewhuis) | Eurostat (EU Labour Force Survey) | 2025 | EU Labour Force Survey, ages 20 to 64, all 27 member states, 2025 | Official household survey of usual weekly hours. Employers are self-employed people with employees; there is no firm-size breakdown. | Employers 46.3 hours a week (full-time 47.5); self-employed without employees 39.7; employees 36.6 “Self-employed persons with employees (employers)” | ec.europa.eu ↗ |
| The Big Price Of Small Tasks | Time etc, survey by Censuswide | 2023 | 251 US owners of growing businesses, September 2023 | Online panel survey by a virtual-assistant company that sells admin outsourcing | 45.5 hours a week; 36% of the week on small admin tasks such as invoicing and data entry “the average work week for entrepreneurs at the helm of growing businesses is 45.5 hours” | timeetc.com ↗ |
| An extra hour of SMB productivity a week worth £7bn to UK economy | Sage | 2024 | UK small business owners; sample size not stated | Vendor survey; Sage sells accounting software | 51 hours a week on average; 51% wish they spent less time on admin “On average, they invest 51 hours weekly in their business” | sage.com ↗ |
| How microbusiness owners spend their time | UENI Research | 2024 | 837 US businesses with five or fewer employees, May 2024 | Vendor survey; recruitment not stated. UENI sells websites and AI tools to microbusinesses. | Median 60 hours a week; 62% work more than 50; admin plus legal and compliance take 22.4% of owner time “The median number of hours worked per week among microbusinesses surveyed was 60 hours.” | ueni.com ↗ |
How much of a small business owner's time goes to admin?
About a fifth to a third, in two vendor surveys: 22% for administration plus legal and compliance among US firms with five or fewer employees (UENI, 2024), and 36% for small admin tasks such as invoicing and data entry among owners of growing businesses (Time etc, 2023). Applied to a 45-hour week that is roughly 10 to 16 hours; the surveys report only the shares.
Does AI shorten small business owners' workdays?
For some. In January 2026, 27% of AI-using US businesses with up to 100 employees said AI had shortened their workday and 8% that it had lengthened it, in Intuit's vendor survey.
| Study | Creator | Year | Sample | Method | Figure | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 AI Impact Report | Intuit QuickBooks, with economists at the University of Chicago | 2026 | 2,222 US owners of businesses with 0 to 100 employees, January 2026 | Paid panel and Intuit customers. Intuit sells AI features in QuickBooks. | 27% say AI shortened their workday; 8% that it lengthened it “27% of US businesses using AI said it had shortened their workday” | intuit.com ↗ |
Numbers you may have seen
These figures circulate widely. Here is what the original source says.
- Small business owners work 52 hours a week. That comes from a Gallup telephone poll of 607 owners in June 2005, usually repeated without the year. Current figures run 45 to 51 hours.
- Small business owners spend 16 hours a week on admin. Third parties derived it by multiplying a 45.5-hour week by a 36% admin share. The survey reports only those two numbers.
- Small business owners spend 23 hours a week on admin (SCORE). We found no primary report containing it; it appears only on aggregator pages.
More from Small Teams
- F-2896–99%How much of the economy do small companies make up?
- F-2920–46%What share of small businesses use AI, and for what?
- F-3013–38 ptsHow does AI adoption differ by company size?
- F-3154–63%What stops small companies from adopting AI?
- F-3265–78%Do small firms that use AI see gains?
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