GuernseyIsland Graph
DraftThis census is a draft. Its figures are live and move as verification proceeds, and nothing here is final until the first frozen edition — Q3 2026, cut on 30 September 2026.Edition calendar →
Island Graph · Live reportUpdated continuouslyDraft

The Guernsey Business Census

How many businesses does Guernsey have? Nobody could answer that — the company register records legal entities, not who actually trades. This page counts the Bailiwick’s real economy: every business, charity and public body with a live trading presence, each verified against published evidence.

As of 4 September 2026⧉ Cite this pageMethodology16 sector chapters →
3,680

active businesses and organisations trading across the Bailiwick’s four inhabited islands today.

3,424Guernsey176Alderney68Sark12Herm
3,680Organisations counted
16Sectors
10Parishes
4Islands
68%Of the estimated total

Coverage

#coverage ⧉

How complete is this count?

3,680 verified & publishedest. total 4,877–5,990

Coverage is stated as a range — 61–75% — because the denominator is itself an estimate. The bar takes the conservative end, so it never overstates what has been counted.

Sampling against independent listings puts the Bailiwick’s true trading population at an estimated 4,877–5,990. This census has verified the share shown alongside, and grows every week.

Estimate measured on 3 September 2026 by capture–recapture against Google's business listings for the Bailiwick, with every organisation that was itself added from those listings left out of the comparison so the two counts stay independent; it is re-measured at each edition, never assumed.

Every count on this page is therefore a floor, never a guess. Where a directory says “dozens of plumbers”, a census tells you the number, the denominator, and what it hasn’t counted yet.

Headline figures

#headlines ⧉

The figures you can quote

These 6 figures clear the citable bar — coverage high enough, count large enough, denominator named. Anything that doesn’t clear it appears further down as a chart, badged, or not at all.

Share of organisations with a primary sector whose main line is Home & Property1 in 6Counted over all 3,680 active organisations554 organisations — the largest of 16 sectors, ahead of Community & Public Services (473) and Health & Wellness (429).
Counted organisations with no website of their own1 in 3Counted over all 3,680 active organisations1,210 were verified from registers, press and sector bodies rather than from a site of their own.
Percentage-point gap in website ownership between the sectors most and least likely to have a site of their own46Of the 3,406 organisations with a primary sector (93% of 3,680)90% of Financial & Fiduciary organisations have a website of their own against 44% of Home & Property, across the 15 sectors where the rate is citable.
Share of everything counted that is based in St Peter Port38%Counted over all 3,680 active organisations1,384 organisations in a single parish — more than any other.
Register and directory rows reconciled to an organisation counted as trading5,192Reconciled against external registersOf 12,930 rows across 8 registers and directories; 5,097 remain unmatched and 2,641 were out of scope. An unmatched row is a job not yet done, not a business that does not trade.Reconciled against external registers
Organisations working in more than one sector28%A sector on record for 3,543 of 3,680 organisations (96%)Counted in every sector they work in, so the sector totals add up to more than the island does.

Sectors

#sectors ⧉

16 sectors, from Home & Property to Agriculture & Marine

Home & Property and Community & Public Services lead: 30% of organisations with a primary sector sit in one of the two. Financial & Fiduciary — the sector Guernsey is known for — ranks 8th of 16 by number of organisations counted.

Primary sector#sectors-primary ⧉

Organisations by primary sector

Of the 3,406 organisations with a primary sector (93% of 3,680)

Home & Property554 16%Community & Public Services473 14%Health & Wellness429 13%Retail & Shopping301 9%Food & Drink298 9%Professional Services242 7%Leisure & Recreation199 6%Financial & Fiduciary192 6%Automotive & Transport182 5%Accommodation169 5%Media & Communications95 3%Education & Childcare68 2%Travel & Transport66 2%Manufacturing & Industry62 2%Events & Celebrations59 2%Agriculture & Marine17 0%

Sector counts are by each organisation's primary sector; 274 of the 3,680 await a primary classification. The contents list opens each sector's own chapter.

The most crowded niches

Sector league

#compared ⧉

One table, 16 sectors, the same question asked of each

Every figure below is the figure that sector’s own chapter prints, counted over that sector’s 93% share of the 3,680 organisations counted. A rank counts only the cells that clear the citable bar, so a sector too thin to compare is shown as a gap rather than given a place it has not earned.

▲ highest and ▼ lowest of the cells that clear the citable bar; ◐ indicative only; — not enough on record. The sector column stays put while the rest scrolls sideways.

▲ highest and ▼ lowest of the cells that clear the citable bar; ◐ a cell whose coverage is only indicative, which may sit in this table but carries no headline; — not enough on record to publish. The island row is counted over all 3,680 active organisations, including those with no primary sector, so it is a baseline rather than a seventeenth competitor.Verified from published evidence; businesses without a web presence are under-represented.Capabilities as published by each organisation and resolved to the graph; a business with no capability claim is not necessarily a business that does none of these things.Counts organisations still trading that publish a founding year; older firms are likelier to do so — survivorship and reporting bias at once.Columns where a rank counts fewer than all 16 sectors: Size (15), Own website (15), Any social account (15), A .gg address (7), Capability coverage (12), Median capabilities (12), Median founding year (5), Opening hours on record (0), Most concentrated in (9).
SectorCountedOwn siteSocial.ggCapabilitiesMedian capsMedian yearHoursConcentrated inRecall
Home & Property1554▲16%44%▼24453%29437%◐90 of 24482%▲4574—33%◐183Vale 1.71109 organisations77%
Community247314%80%37949%23268%▲257 of 37966%3122▼199863% dated—St Peter Port 1.03183 organisations84%
Health342913%66%28247%20243%120 of 28268%2924—51%◐220St Martin 1.5051 organisations72%
Retail43019%62%18648%14425%46 of 18664%▼1923—56%◐170St Sampson 1.5553 organisations80%
Food & Drink52989%61%18361%18252%96 of 18364%1916—60%◐178St Peter Port 1.29143 organisations86%
Professional62427%86%20746%11232%67 of 20775%18162006▲68% dated51%◐124St Peter Port 1.46140 organisations77%
Leisure71996%72%14348%9539%56 of 14355%◐1102◐▼200261% dated—St Peter Port 0.78▼55 organisations61%▼
Finance81926%90%▲17344%8420%▼34 of 17379%1518▲200178% dated57%◐110St Peter Port 2.03▲166 organisations82%
Automotive91825%58%10648%8739%◐41 of 10666%1213—49%◐90Vale 1.9543 organisations79%
Accommodation101695%63%10741%▼6920%◐21 of 10759%◐992◐▼———79%
Media11953%78%7445%4322%◐16 of 7459%◐563◐—40%◐38—64%
Education12682%72%4971%▲4845%◐22 of 4974%502▼—41%◐28—88%
Travel13662%83%5565%43—76%5041996▼61% dated38%◐25—86%
Manufacturing14622%65%4061%3853%◐21 of 4081%503—45%◐28—80%
Events1559▼2%66%3966%3944%◐17 of 3975%443———89%▲
Agri & Marine1617◐0%————————63%◐
Island-wide3,40667%52%40%71%3200641%—68%
Reading the columns
  • Size: Home & Property highest (554), Events & Celebrations lowest (59); island-wide 3,406. Counted for 15 of 16 sectors.
  • Own website: Financial & Fiduciary highest (90%), Home & Property lowest (44%); island-wide 67%. Counted for 15 of 16 sectors.
  • Any social account: Education & Childcare highest (71%), Accommodation lowest (41%); island-wide 52%. Counted for 15 of 16 sectors.
  • A .gg address: Community & Public Services highest (68%), Financial & Fiduciary lowest (20%); island-wide 40%. Counted for 7 of 16 sectors.
  • Capability coverage: Home & Property highest (82%), Retail & Shopping lowest (64%); island-wide 71%. Counted for 12 of 16 sectors.
  • Median capabilities: Financial & Fiduciary highest (8), Education & Childcare lowest (2); island-wide 3. Counted for 15 of 16 sectors.
  • Median founding year: Professional Services highest (2006), Travel & Transport lowest (1996); island-wide 2006. Counted for 5 of 16 sectors.
  • Most concentrated in: Financial & Fiduciary highest (St Peter Port 2.03), Leisure & Recreation lowest (St Peter Port 0.78). Counted for 9 of 16 sectors.
  • Measured recall: Events & Celebrations highest (89%), Leisure & Recreation lowest (61%); island-wide 68%.

Working across sectors

#cross-sector ⧉

Most organisations do one thing. Plenty do two.

28% of the organisations with a sector on record work in more than one — a hotel that is also a restaurant, a farm shop that is also a café. The island averages 1.31 sectors per organisation.

Sector porosity#cross-sector-chord ⧉

Organisations working in two sectors at once

A sector on record for 3,543 of 3,680 organisations (96%)

Home & Prope…CommunityHealthRetailFood & DrinkProfessionalLeisureFinanceAutomotiveAccommodationMediaEducationTravelManufacturingEventsAgri & Marine1,232sector pairin…

Arc length is a sector's shared members, not its headcount — an organisation in one sector only is excluded, or every ribbon would be a thread. The middle counts PAIRINGS, not organisations: an organisation working in three sectors makes three of them, and 979 organisations work in two or more. An organisation in two sectors is counted in both, so these ribbons say “works in”, never “is in”.

The most bridged pairs

  • Community & Public Services × Leisure & Recreation116 organisations work in both
  • Community & Public Services × Health & Wellness70 organisations work in both
  • Home & Property × Retail & Shopping56 organisations work in both
  • Home & Property × Manufacturing & Industry49 organisations work in both
  • Financial & Fiduciary × Professional Services48 organisations work in both
  • Media & Communications × Professional Services44 organisations work in both
  • Home & Property × Professional Services42 organisations work in both
  • Health & Wellness × Leisure & Recreation40 organisations work in both

The 8 pairs carrying the most organisations, of 91 pairs with anyone in common. Counted in both sectors, so a pair says “works in”, never “is in”.

Parishes

#parishes ⧉

St Peter Port dominates; Torteval fields 29

St Peter Port holds 1,384 organisations on record — more than the next three parishes combined. At the other end, the whole parish of Torteval runs on 29 organisations counted so far.

By parish#parishes-map ⧉

Organisations by parish

A parish on record for 3,220 of 3,680 organisations (88%)

Organisations01,384
St Peter P…1,384St Sampson426Vale420Castel268St Saviour98St Pierre du Bois97Torteval29Forest108St Martin282St Andrew108

Tap a parish for its full name and count — at this size some shapes are too small to carry a label. Every parish is in the table.

Guernsey parishes only; Alderney, Sark and Herm are counted in the island split above. 460 organisations don't yet have a parish on record — the map fills in as verification proceeds.

The island's mix#parish-sector-grid ⧉

Parishes against sectors

A parish and a primary sector on record for 2,998 of 3,680 organisations (81%)

Colour by
Organisations0183
Home & Prope…CommunityHealthRetailFood & DrinkProfessionalLeisureFinanceAutomotiveAccommodationMediaEducationTravelManufacturingEventsAgri & MarineSt Peter PortSt SampsonValeCastelSt MartinForestSt AndrewSt SaviourSt Pierre du…Torteval

Switch to “share vs island” for the location quotient: a parish's own mix against the island's. Grey means “the same as everywhere else”, which is the commonest reading and should look like nothing.

Density#parishes-per-capita ⧉

Organisations per 1,000 residents

A parish on record for 3,220 of 3,680 organisations (88%)

St Peter Port70.3Forest66.5St Pierre du Bois48.5St Sampson46.7St Andrew46.4Vale43.5St Martin42.4St Saviour34.6Castel30.8Torteval28.3

Resident counts: States of Guernsey, Guernsey Annual Electronic Census Report 2023, Table 6.1.1 (population at 31 March 2023). A parish where people work but few live reads high; this is a density of organisations, not of employment.

Source: https://www.gov.gg/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=174892&p=0

Founding years

#age ⧉

A millennium of founding dates, and a very young economy

The register spans nearly a millennium of founding dates, and a founding year is published far more readily by older firms than by new ones. The oldest business on record dates to 1712; the oldest institution to 1030.

Founding era#age-eras ⧉

Organisations by founding era

A founding year on record for 1,784 of 3,680 organisations (48%)

On record for 48% — indicative
0200400600pre-18001950–792000–094732020s

The register spans from an institution founded in 1030 to 276 organisations founded in the 2020s. Half of those with a founding year on record were founded after 2006. Counts organisations still trading that publish a founding year; older firms are likelier to do so.

“On-island since” is the year a business began trading here — a branch of an older mainland firm counts from its Guernsey arrival, not its parent's founding.

By sector#age-by-sector ⧉

Founding eras, sector by sector

A founding year on record for 1,657 of 3,680 organisations (45%)

On record for 45% — indicative
Community & Public Services
296 of 473
050100pre-18002020s
Home & Property
207 of 554
pre-18002020s
Health & Wellness
168 of 429
050100pre-18002020s
Professional Services
165 of 242
pre-18002020s
Financial & Fiduciary
149 of 192
050100pre-18002020s
Retail & Shopping
132 of 301
pre-18002020s
Food & Drink
122 of 298
050100pre-18002020s
Leisure & Recreation
122 of 199
pre-18002020s
Automotive & Transport
84 of 182
050100pre-18002020s
Media & Communications
49 of 95
pre-18002020s
Travel & Transport
40 of 66
050100pre-18002020s
Manufacturing & Industry
33 of 62
pre-18002020s
Education & Childcare
27 of 68
050100pre-18002020s
Events & Celebrations
18 of 59
pre-18002020s

All panels share one vertical scale (organisations, 0–72), so panel heights are comparable.

Only sectors whose founding-year coverage clears the indicative floor are drawn: 14 of 16. Each panel's own base is in its title. Same survivorship and reporting bias as above.

Capabilities

#capabilities ⧉

2,608 organisations have what they do resolved to the graph

A sector is a label; a capability is a service someone published and we resolved to the graph. The typical organisation on record holds 3 of them. They fall into 15 domains.

Domain → group#capability-rings ⧉

The capability graph, from the outside in

A capability on record for 2,608 of 3,680 organisations (71%)

Zoom
Professional se…Built e…Health &…Food &…Leisur…Retai…All domains5,514org–group links

Capabilities as published by each organisation and resolved to the graph. The figure in the middle counts organisation-to-group links: an organisation working across two groups is counted in each, so the rings add up to more than the number of organisations.

One row per domain#capability-leaders ⧉

The leading capability in each domain

A capability on record for 2,608 of 3,680 organisations (71%)

Food & drink: Lunch123 5%Built environment: General buil…116 4%Professional services: Family o…77 3%Retail & shopping: Gifts & gift…68 3%Grounds & cleaning: Garden main…48 2%Accommodation: Self-catering st…48 2%Events & celebrations: Wedding…42 2%Financial services: Investment…40 2%Health & wellness: Family suppo…39 1%Automotive & transport: Vehicle…37 1%Leisure & recreation: Heritage…36 1%Manufacturing & industry: Waste…30 1%Marine & agriculture: Boat repa…16 1%Travel & transport: History & h…16 1%Media & communications: Commerc…12 0%

The busiest node in each domain, rather than the busiest nodes island-wide — which are generic amenities and tell you nothing about what the island does. Every row links to its roll call.

How central is it?#capability-roles ⧉

Is this what they do, or one of many things they do?

A positioning note on record for 2,346 of 3,680 organisations (64%)

This is what they do1,561 67%Core to the business1,444 62%One of many services915 39%A sideline277 12%

The roles overlap: one business can be “this is what they do” for one capability and “a sideline” for another, so these rows add up past the number of businesses.

Opening hours

#hours ⧉

The island’s working week, hour by hour

Only the organisations that publish a weekly grid are in this chart; a business that publishes nothing is not counted as closed, and seasonal or per-site prose is left unparsed rather than half-parsed.

Seven days, twenty-four hours#hours-clock ⧉

Organisations open, by day and hour

Opening hours on record for 1,525 of 3,680 organisations (41%)

On record for 41% — indicative
Organisations open01,394
00061218MonTueWedThuFriSatSunmidnight ↑

26% of the organisations that publish a weekly grid open on a Sunday. The median week runs 45 hours. Published opening hours only; a business that does not publish hours is not counted as closed. 2,125 organisations hold hours of some shape, of which 1,525 resolve to a weekly grid and 600 are seasonal or per-site prose that must not be half-parsed.

Legal form

#form ⧉

Legal form, as far as it is published

Legal form is published far less often than a phone number, so this is the section where the honest answer is mostly “we don’t know yet”. It stays on the page with its coverage stated, because a blank with a denominator is worth more than a confident number over a silent base.

Legal form#legal-form ⧉

Organisations by legal form

A legal form on record for 1,249 of 3,680 organisations (34%)

On record for 34% — indicative
Limited company871 70%Sole trader175 14%Charity60 5%Limited by guarantee45 4%Other34 3%States entity28 2%Partnership24 2%LLP12 1%

70% of those that publish a legal form are limited company — a limited company states its status in a footer and a sole trader rarely does, so this is a picture of who publishes. A further 330 organisations hold something in the legal-form slot that is not a legal form — filing notes, cancellation policies, a bare year. Those leave the denominator rather than inflating “other”.

Online presence

#digital ⧉

1 in 3 of the organisations counted has no website

They were still found, and still verified — from registers, the press, sector bodies and social pages. A census that counted only the websited would not have them at all.

Organisations with a website of their own2,470Counted over all 3,680 active organisationsA site of their own on record — not a directory listing or a social page.
Of those websites, the share on a .gg domain40%A website on record for 2,470 of 3,680 organisations (67%)The island's own top-level domain, against .com and .co.uk.
Organisations linking a Facebook page1,794A social link on record for 1,902 of 3,680 organisations (52%)On record for 52% — indicative
Organisations linking a Instagram page839A social link on record for 1,902 of 3,680 organisations (52%)On record for 52% — indicative
Where they post#digital-social ⧉

Organisations by social platform

A social link on record for 1,902 of 3,680 organisations (52%)

On record for 52% — indicative
Facebook1,794 94%Instagram839 44%X / Twitter350 18%LinkedIn292 15%Other platform26 1%YouTube13 1%TikTok3 0%

An organisation on two platforms is counted on both, so these rows add up to more than the number with any social presence. Verified from published evidence; businesses without a web presence are under-represented.

Registers and directories

#registers ⧉

5,192 of 12,930 register and directory rows are bound to a trading organisation

Public registers and directories are where discovery starts, not where it ends. Each bar below is one source, cut into the three states its rows are in: bound to an organisation we count as trading, still an unmatched candidate, or rejected as out of scope.

Per source#registers-matched ⧉

Register rows, and what became of them

Reconciled against external registers

Reconciled against external registers
MatchedUnmatched candidateRejected as out of scope
Association of Guernsey Charities87%VisitGuernsey68%Food.gg59%Google Business Profile55%Yabsta directory49%OpenStreetMap44%Guernsey charity register42%Guernsey Financial Services Commiss…8%

Every bar is one row's own rows, so the bars compare the split rather than the size. On the right, matched as a share of that row's rows.

Register rows not yet matched to a trading presence are counted as unmatched, not as non-trading. Rows are rows, not organisations: the 5,192 matched rows sit behind fewer than 5,192 organisations, because two directories can list the same business.

Alderney, Sark, Herm

#islands ⧉

The Bailiwick is four islands, not one

256 organisations counted trade somewhere other than Guernsey. They are small enough that a roll call is the honest form — and small enough that a chart of them would flatter the numbers.

Alderney
176
organisations counted
Community & Public Services37
Health & Wellness25
Retail & Shopping23
Accommodation16
Leisure & Recreation15
Sark
68
organisations counted
Accommodation19
Food & Drink12
Community & Public Services9
Retail & Shopping8
Leisure & Recreation6
Herm
12
organisations counted
Food & Drink5
Accommodation3
Community & Public Services1
Leisure & Recreation1
Retail & Shopping1

Names

#names ⧉

The Norman-French is still in the phone book

Guernsey’s place names are Norman-French and so, still, are a good number of its businesses. This counts names opening with an article — Le, La, Les, Des, Du, L’ — which under-counts the Norman surnames that carry no article at all.

Names carrying a French or Norman article5%Counted over all 3,680 active organisations170 organisations, counted over every canonical name on record.

Newly verified

#pulse ⧉

Newly verified in the last 30 days

This is discovery, not formation: a business added here was found and verified this month, not founded this month. What an opening or a closure rate would take is set out under Method.

+1,134
organisations added to the register (discovery, not openings)
+38,255
new facts verified
48,486
source observations processed
129
recorded as no longer trading, to date

Use these numbers

#use ⧉

Free to reuse, with attribution

Journalists, researchers and officials are welcome to these figures. Every section has a stable anchor, and every count traces to published evidence. License: CC BY 4.0 — credit “Island Graph” with a link.

census.csvsector × parishcensus.jsonevery aggregateAbout the dataFull methodology
Island Graph, The Guernsey Business Census, island.gg/census — as of 4 September 2026.

Writing about this? Press desk — the citable lines, the files and a standing data-desk offer. Enquiries → press@island.gg. Machine readers: this page carries schema.org Dataset markup with both distributions.

Method

#method ⧉

What counts, how it is verified, and what this page cannot tell you

What counts

Anything with a live trading or public presence in the Bailiwick: businesses, charities, clubs, churches, public bodies. Presence, not paperwork — a company registration alone doesn’t qualify; a market stall with customers does.

How it’s verified

Every organisation is built from published evidence — its own site, regulators, sector bodies, local press — with each fact linked to its source and re-checked over time. 174,436 standing facts today.

What we get wrong

Coverage is partial and stated openly; closures can lag reality by weeks. Spot an error or a missing business? Tell us — corrections ship continuously.

What this page cannot tell you

Four figures a reader may be looking for, and why none of them can be computed from this snapshot rather than merely being missing from it.

  • Openings per year — not computable

    Every organisation counted is active by construction, and a founding year is not an opening date — it is what a surviving business chose to publish about itself.

  • Closures per year — not computable

    No record carries a cessation date or a status history. A business found to have stopped trading is marked as such, without the date it stopped.

  • Net formation — not computable

    It is the difference between two figures, neither of which this snapshot holds. A count of what was added to the register is discovery, not formation.

  • Survival rate — not computable

    Record-creation dates span months rather than years, so no cohort can be followed from one period to the next.

There are two routes to a real series and neither is in this snapshot: the Guernsey Registry’s strike-off and dissolution notices, and successive frozen editions of this census compared against each other. The second starts the first time an edition is cut.

Full methodology — populations, tiers, biases and how recall is measured →