How many days can a small business run without money coming in?
27 days for the median US small business: that is how long its cash balance could cover its usual outflows if all money coming in stopped. A quarter of businesses held fewer than 13 days of cash and a quarter held more than 62. The figures come from the JPMorgan Chase Institute’s study of 597,000 small businesses, based on their bank data from 2015.
United States · small businesses · bank data from 2015 · medians, not a rule for any one business · every figure with its source
Cash buffer days across all small businesses in the study
Cash buffer days = average daily cash balance ÷ average daily outflows: the days of outflows a business could pay from its cash if all inflows stopped. JPMorgan Chase Institute, 597,000 small businesses and 470 million transactions, February 2015 to October 2015.
| Figure | Value |
|---|---|
| Cash buffer days, 25th percentile | 13 |
| Cash buffer days, median | 27 |
| Cash buffer days, 75th percentile | 62 |
| Daily inflows, median | $381 |
| Daily outflows, median | $374 |
| Cash balance, median | $12,100 |
Median cash buffer days by industry
Sorted from the thinnest buffer to the thickest. Medians within each industry, 2015 bank data.
| Industry | Median cash buffer days |
|---|---|
| Restaurants | 16 |
| Repair & Maintenance | 18 |
| Retail | 19 |
| Construction | 20 |
| Personal Services | 21 |
| Wholesalers | 23 |
| Metal & Machinery | 28 |
| Health Care Services | 30 |
| High-Tech Manufacturing | 32 |
| Other Professional Services | 33 |
| High-Tech Services | 33 |
| Real Estate | 47 |
What employer firms report more recently
Federal Reserve Banks, Small Business Credit Survey, employer firms. The 2024 survey was fielded from September 4, 2024 to November 4, 2024. The 2025 survey was fielded from September 3, 2025 to November 14, 2025 among 6,525 firms with 1–499 employees, and its findings were published on March 25, 2026. The last three rows are shares of the firms that applied for financing.
| Finding | Survey | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Cited rising costs of goods, services and/or wages as a financial challenge | 2024 survey | 75% |
| Cited paying operating expenses as a financial challenge | 2024 survey | 56% |
| Cited uneven cash flows as a financial challenge | 2024 survey | 51% |
| Experienced rising costs or tariff-related challenges | 2025 survey | 77% |
| Applied for financing in the prior 12 months | 2025 survey | 60% |
| Sought financing to meet operating expenses | 2025 survey | 56% |
| Applicants that received the full amount sought | 2025 survey | 42% |
| Applicants that received part of it | 2025 survey | 36% |
| Applicants that received none | 2025 survey | 22% |
The measure is called cash buffer days: a business’s average daily cash balance divided by its average daily outflows. For scale, the study’s median business kept $12,100 in the bank, with $381 coming in and $374 going out on a typical day — money in and money out almost cancel out, so a balance that looks comfortable can cover only a few weeks of spending. Those are three separate medians, so dividing one by another does not reproduce the 27 days.
Read these figures for what they are. They come from 2015 bank data — still the most detailed published measure of small-business cash buffers, but not a current one, so today’s figures may differ. They are medians: half of businesses held more, half held less, and your business can be very different. Industry makes a large difference, from 16 days for restaurants to 47 for real estate. More recent surveys do not measure buffer days, but they show that cash pressure is common: in the Federal Reserve Banks’ 2025 Small Business Credit Survey, 77% of employer firms reported rising costs or tariff-related challenges, and 56% sought financing to meet operating expenses.
What this means for your business
The study’s median is a benchmark, not your number — and your own number is easy to work out. Here is our own arithmetic, not a figure from the study: a business whose outflows total $30,000 a month spends about $1,000 a day over a 30-day month, so holding $27,000 gives it about 27 days of buffer — the same as the median business in 2015. Divide your average cash balance by your average daily outflows in the same way.
Then compare the result with your industry’s row above, and with how long it would take you to react — cut a cost, collect an invoice, replace a lost customer. The calculators below go further: runway that keeps your reserve and counts money you are owed, a week-by-week cash plan, and how far sales can fall before your cash runs short.
How many days would your business last?
Medians describe thousands of businesses, not yours. The Business Decision X-Ray runs your own numbers day by day: the exact date your cash would break, what breaks it first and the smallest fix. Open the demo — every section, no sign-up.
Where these figures come from
Each row below is one line of our open dataset: the primary document the figure was read out of, the date it was read, and a link to the document itself. Nothing here was copied from a summary of a summary.
| constant | basis | source document | verified on |
|---|---|---|---|
JPMCI_CASH_BUFFER_DAYS_2015 |
research-report | JPMorgan Chase Institute, “Cash is King: Flows, Balances, and Buffer Days — Evidence from 600,000 Small Businesses” (September 2016) | ✓ verified |
SBCS_2024_EMPLOYER_FIRMS |
survey | Federal Reserve Banks, 2024 Small Business Credit Survey — key insights (employer firms; fielded 4 September – 4 November 2024) | ✓ verified |
SBCS_2025_EMPLOYER_FIRMS |
survey | Federal Reserve Banks, 2026 Report on Employer Firms — findings from the 2025 Small Business Credit Survey (published 25 March 2026) | ✓ verified |
SBCS_2025_SUMMARY |
survey | America’s SBDC — summary of the 2026 Report on Employer Firms (2025 Small Business Credit Survey) | ✓ verified |
Work out your own
Knowing the limit is half of it. These calculators apply the same figures to your numbers, in your browser, and show the working line by line.
The whole dataset
The industry table as CSV, and every figure on this page as JSON, with the source document and the date checked on every row. The buffer-day figures are © JPMorgan Chase Institute and reproduced with attribution; our files are a transcription, and the original report is authoritative.
Nearby answers
This page reports published research and survey figures. It is not financial advice. Check any figure against the linked original before relying on it.
