Small-business health: our October forecast
Our October forecast puts fewer businesses in Good health and more in Poor health than NFIB reported in September.
October 23, 2026 · 500 synthetic business-owner profiles · 10 repetitions
The October forecast
These are our estimates for the four business-health categories in NFIB's October 2026 Small Business Economic Trends survey.
- Excellent
- 14.2%
- Good
- 43.6%
- Fair
- 32.3%
- Poor
- 10.0%
Percentages are rounded for display and total 100.1%; the unrounded forecast totals 100%.
Compared with September
Good falls from 48% in September to 43.6% in our forecast; Poor rises from 4% to 10.0%. Excellent is slightly higher, while Fair is lower.
| Category | September NFIB | October forecast |
|---|---|---|
| Excellent | 13% | 14.2% |
| Good | 48% | 43.6% |
| Fair | 35% | 32.3% |
| Poor | 4% | 10.0% |
Source: NFIB Small Business Economic Trends, September 2026. © NFIB Research Center.
How we will score it
We will compare the frozen forecast with the first official NFIB October 2026 business-health figures for Excellent, Good, Fair and Poor. The release is expected on November 10, 2026, based on NFIB's second-Tuesday release schedule.
For each category, we will take the absolute difference between our unrounded forecast and the official percentage, then average those four differences. That mean absolute error (MAE) is measured in percentage points.
WIN if MAE is 6 percentage points or less; LOSE if it is above 6. We will publish the four official figures, the four errors and the resulting grade here. The grade is Pending until the comparable official outcome is available.
We will also score a September persistence baseline of 13% Excellent, 48% Good, 35% Fair and 4% Poor against the same October figures. That comparison is separate and does not add another condition to the WIN/LOSE rule.
Methods, briefly
The forecast averages 10 repetitions using the same 500 synthetic business-owner profiles. Industry and business-size allocations approximate the September NFIB survey profile; business size includes owners. These are model-generated estimates, with no human respondents and no NFIB-specific calibration.
The official comparison will come from NFIB's Small Business Economic Trends report.
Get the next forecast before the answer.
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