The Guernsey Business Census · Press
Numbers you can print
Nobody could say how many businesses Guernsey has. The company register records legal entities, not who actually trades; the directories say “dozens”. This census counts the Bailiwick’s real economy — every business, charity and public body with a live trading presence, each one verified against published evidence — and publishes the denominator beside every figure.
Everything below is free to reuse with attribution. Each line carries the base it is counted over and a citation you can paste. If the figure you need is not here, it is usually because it does not clear the bar yet — ask and we will tell you what we do have.
As of 9 October 2026
The lines
Every figure that clears the citable bar today: coverage high enough, count large enough, denominator named. They are ordered as the census itself ranks them.
Counted over all 3,573 active organisations
Presence, not paperwork: every one has a live trading or public presence verified against published evidence. The count is a floor.
Active businesses, charities and public bodies counted across the Bailiwick: 3,573. Island Graph, The Guernsey Business Census, island.gg/census#count — as of 9 October 2026.
Counted over all 3,573 active organisations
Alderney 170, Sark 67, Herm 11; Guernsey holds the remaining 3,325.
Of those, counted on Alderney, Sark or Herm rather than Guernsey: 248. Island Graph, The Guernsey Business Census, island.gg/census#islands — as of 9 October 2026.
Measured on 30 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. The census has verified 3,573 of them, which is why every count on the page is a floor rather than a total.
Estimated true trading population of the Bailiwick: 4,798–5,905. Island Graph, The Guernsey Business Census, island.gg/census#coverage — as of 9 October 2026.
Counted over all 3,573 active organisations
588 organisations — the largest of 16 sectors, ahead of Community & Public Services (531) and Health & Wellness (425).
Share of organisations with a primary sector whose main line is Home & Property: 1 in 6. Island Graph, The Guernsey Business Census, island.gg/census#sectors-primary — as of 9 October 2026.
Counted over all 3,573 active organisations
1,166 were verified from registers, press and sector bodies rather than from a site of their own.
Counted organisations with no website of their own: 1 in 3. Island Graph, The Guernsey Business Census, island.gg/census#digital — as of 9 October 2026.
Of the 3,539 organisations with a primary sector (99% of 3,573)
89% of Financial & Fiduciary organisations have a website of their own against 44% of Home & Property, across the 15 sectors where the rate is citable.
Percentage-point gap in website ownership between the sectors most and least likely to have a site of their own: 45 pts. Island Graph, The Guernsey Business Census, island.gg/census#compared — as of 9 October 2026.
Counted over all 3,573 active organisations
1,337 organisations in a single parish — more than any other.
Share of everything counted that is based in St Peter Port: 37%. Island Graph, The Guernsey Business Census, island.gg/census#parishes-map — as of 9 October 2026.
Reconciled against external registers
Of 12,930 rows across 8 registers and directories; 5,096 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.
Register and directory rows reconciled to an organisation counted as trading: 5,193. Island Graph, The Guernsey Business Census, island.gg/census#registers-matched — as of 9 October 2026.
A supplier is on record for 6 of 6 services on the published list (100%)
electricity supply, water supply and wastewater, scheduled bus services, scheduled airline, cheese and dairy produce and acute hospital care — most of them by design: a States trading company, a contract let by the States, or a licence. Read from the record against a published list of 6 services.
Essential services supplied by one or two organisations on record: 6. Island Graph, The Guernsey Business Census, island.gg/census#essentials — as of 9 October 2026.
A sector on record for 3,539 of 3,573 organisations (99%)
Counted in every sector they work in, so the sector totals add up to more than the island does.
Organisations working in more than one sector: 15%. Island Graph, The Guernsey Business Census, island.gg/census#cross-sector-chord — as of 9 October 2026.
A capability on record for 2,529 of 3,573 organisations (71%)
Capabilities as published by each organisation and resolved to the graph.
Organisations with what they do resolved to the graph: 2,529. Island Graph, The Guernsey Business Census, island.gg/census#capability-rings — as of 9 October 2026.
A parish on record for 3,126 of 3,573 organisations (87%)
The densest parish on record. Resident counts: States of Guernsey, Guernsey Annual Electronic Census Report 2023, Table 6.1.1 (population at 31 March 2023).
Organisations per 1,000 residents in St Peter Port: 68. Island Graph, The Guernsey Business Census, island.gg/census#parishes-per-capita — as of 9 October 2026.
Counted over all 3,573 active organisations
161 organisations open their name with Le, La, Les, Des, Du or L’.
Names still carrying a French or Norman article: 5%. Island Graph, The Guernsey Business Census, island.gg/census#names — as of 9 October 2026.
Held back, on purpose: organisations trading for a century or more; organisations added to the register in the last 30 days. Each of these is on the census page with its coverage badged, and each is real — but it sits over a base too thin to headline, so we will not hand it to you as a sentence.
Sector chapters
Each chapter is the census answered for one sector, at its own citable URL: the count, the measured coverage, the sector’s own share cards and the module that carries its argument. Same rules, one sector at a time.
The files
Regenerated hourly from the same aggregates the page reads, so a download and a chart can never disagree.
The desk
Writing a Guernsey business story? We will pull the numbers.
Standing offer, no charge, no exclusivity: tell us the question and we will run it against the graph and send back the figures with their denominators and the evidence behind them — openings and closures in a parish, how many of a trade there actually are, who is older than the harbour. The price is attribution and a link.
Licence
CC BY 4.0. Credit “Island Graph” with a link to the page or the edition you took the figure from. Licence terms.
Edition calendar
Editions are frozen quarterly. The next is Q4 2026 on 31 December 2026. If you are quoting a figure in print, cite an edition rather than the live page — it will still resolve next year.
How to word it
Every count is a floor: the census counts what it has verified, not what exists. So “3,573 counted” rather than “Guernsey has 3,573”, and “the oldest on record” rather than “the oldest”.
Quoting in print? Cite a frozen edition rather than the live page: the live page moves and an edition does not. What has moved since, and why, is dated on the revisions log.
What we get wrong
Coverage is partial and stated openly; closures can lag reality by weeks; businesses with no web presence are under-represented. All three are on the methodology page in more detail than most people want.