Amidst discussions of tariffs, higher unemployment and a shrinking gross domestic product, popular indicators of Colorado’s economy have shown a mixed bag throughout 2025.

But one measurement of business activity did very well over the last few months.

New business filings grew by nearly 51,200 in the second quarter, up 5.3% compared to the first quarter of 2025, according to a new report from University of Colorado Boulder and the Colorado Secretary of State’s office.

More remarkably, it’s up 19% more than the same period during last year.

“It is the highest second quarter of new business filings that we have in the history of this data,” said CU Boulder Economist Brian Lewandowski, who was surprised by the size of the jump in new filings.

“It truly is a great quarter for new filings,” he added.

Business filings are a gauge of entrepreneurial activity in the state.

Some of the data suggests Colorado’s business filings saw a rebound from a statewide change in fees that has affected some of the data’s trends in the past few years.

In 2022, the state temporarily reduced the fee to register a new business to $1 as part of HB22-1001, also named as the “Colorado Business Fee Relief Act.” It led to a boom in registrations.

Last year, business filings slowed when the fee went back up to $50.

“I really just thought it was a normalization of filing activity after we went through a boom and then a little bit of a lull after the fee filing reduction,” Lewandowski said. “But I think the activity that we’re looking at right now is really extraordinary.”

It’s not yet clear what might have driven the sudden recovery and the size of it during a typically slower time of year for business filings, he said.

But Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat opposed to President Donald Trump’s economic policies such as tariffs, said it could be a sign more people are scared of the future of the economy and are looking for additional sources of money.

“People could be opening up businesses because they are trying to supplement their incomes, whether they are working hourly or salary jobs, and they feel that they need to bring more resources in or because their paycheck just isn’t stretching far enough,” Griswold said.

Griswold blamed Trump’s tariffs for pushing the nation’s GDP, as well as Colorado’s, to shrink in the first quarter as imports surged.

Colorado’s GDP fell 0.4% quarter-over-quarter but was up 2% year-over-year.

She also noted inflation was rising again nationwide due to the tariffs, which Trump said was necessary to cut deals with other nations.

Another good indicator is Colorado saw entities in good standing up 2.8% from last June and up from 1.7% from the prior quarter, according to the report.

But delinquencies also went up by 8.4% from the previous year.

“It’s sort of balancing the good with the bad there a little bit,” Lewandowski said.

Colorado’s job market is still staying strong as the state’s labor department reported 10,600 jobs added year-over-year.

The state’s rising unemployment rate dipped for the first time in months in June to 4.7% — though it’s still higher than the national average of 4.1%.

“So that’s what we hope to be seen is a growing labor force and a decreasing number of unemployed people,” Lewandowski said.