Majority-owned U.S. affiliates of foreign multinational enterprises employed 8.66 million workers in the United States in 2023, a 1.9 percent increase from 8.5 million workers in 2022, according to statistics on U.S. affiliate operations and finances released today by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Majority-owned U.S. affiliates accounted for 6.2 percent of total private-industry employment in the United States in 2023, down from 6.3 percent in 2022.
Current-dollar value added of majority-owned U.S. affiliates, a measure of their direct contribution to U.S. gross domestic product, increased 6.3 percent to $1.47 trillion in 2023.
Expenditures for property, plant, and equipment by majority-owned U.S. affiliates increased 6.3 percent to $322.7 billion.
Research and development performed by majority-owned U.S. affiliates increased 1.1 percent to $87.8 billion.
Additional statistics on the activities of U.S. affiliates of foreign multinationals including sales, balance sheet and income statement items, compensation of employees, trade, and more are available on BEA’s website. More industry-, country-, and state-level details are available on BEA’s website.
Updates to the statistics
Statistics for 2022 are revised to incorporate newly available and revised source data. Preliminary statistics for 2022 were released in November 2024 and highlighted in “Activities of U.S. Affiliates of Foreign Multinational Enterprises in 2022” in the Survey of Current Business in December 2024.
| Preliminary estimate |
Revised estimate |
|
|---|---|---|
| Number of employees (thousands) | 8,351.0 | 8,503.1 |
| Value added | 1,350.1 | 1,382.1 |
| Expenditures for property, plant, and equipment | 299.1 | 303.5 |
| Research and development expenditures | 80.3 | 86.8 |
| U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis | ||
Related Data Tables
Starting with this release, BEA is not including tables in the body of the news release. For the 2023 activities of U.S. affiliates of foreign multinational enterprises statistics highlighted in this release, as well as estimates for earlier years, see the data tables in BEA’s Interactive Data Application and comprehensive data tables.
Discontinued tables
Some data tables previously produced alongside this news release have been discontinued as of December 5, 2025. Selected annual data tables, including statistics on U.S. affiliates with 50 percent or less foreign ownership and supplemental industry statistics, will be impacted or discontinued and have been archived. These tables have never been part of the data tables included in the body of the news releases.
Next release: July 10, 2026
Activities of U.S. Affiliates of Foreign Multinational Enterprises, 2024
