The ABS measures business owner demographics, research and development (R&D), innovation, and other topics of interest among businesses in the United States. The ABS is a joint statistical project between the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) within the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Census Bureau.

To report online:

1. Sign-in or Register at https://portal.census.gov.
   
2. Add your authentication code.
3. Report by clicking on “REPORT NOW.”  You can return to your account over multiple sessions to complete.
4. For assistance completing this survey, please sign-in to your Census Bureau account at https://portal.census.gov and send us a secure message or call the customer help line at 1-888-824-9954, Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time.
5. Please visit How Do I Get Started? for additional information.
   
6. Please visit How-To Video for information on ‘Signing into the Respondent’ portal, via your Census Bureau account.
7. For survey specific information, please visit our FAQ's.

The survey does not need to be completed in one sitting. You may save and exit the survey and return later to continue.

Title 13, United States Code, Sections 8(b), 131, and 182; Title 42, United States Code, Section 1861-76 (National Science Foundation Act of 1950, as amended); and Section 505 within the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010, authorize this collection.  Sections 224 and 225 of Title 13, require your response.

The U.S. Census Bureau is required by Section 9 of Title 13 to keep your information confidential and use your responses only to produce statistics.  The Census Bureau is not permitted to publicly release your responses in a way that could identify your business, organization, or institution. Per the Federal Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2015, your data are protected from cybersecurity risks through screening of the systems that transmit data.

Below are a few common items you can use to verify the legitimacy of this survey:

1. Ensure the Web address provided in the letter is a "census.gov" domain.
2. Correspondence sent in the form of a letter or email will contain reporting instructions and a phone number for survey assistance. Any email correspondence related to this survey will come from a census.gov address.
3. On the sign-in screen, a warning message should be present stating the respondent is accessing a U.S. Government computer.
4. After clicking on the “Report Now” button in the Respondent Portal, the OMB Number and OMB Approval Expiration information will appear in the upper right on all screens of the electronic reporting instrument. The bottom of the sign-in screen should have a link for the “Burden Statement” which also contains the OMB eight-digit number.