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Micro and small enterprises (MSMEs) increased their share among active formal employers in El Salvador, rising from 86.7% in 2024 to 93% in 2025, according to data from the Instituto Salvadoreño del Seguro Social (ISSS) released by the Comisión Nacional de la Micro y Pequeña Empresa (CONAMYPE).
This figure means that 9 out of every 10 active formal employers are MSMEs, solidifying the importance of this segment within the country’s formal business sector. CONAMYPE highlighted that formalization enables these businesses to access greater opportunities and noted that the growth of MSMEs also represents growth for the salvadoran economy.
This progress occurred alongside a 2.9% increase in the total number of active formal employers between 2024 and 2025. This indicator tracks the evolution of the business landscape maintaining a formal relationship with the social security system and serves as a benchmark for measuring the performance of registered businesses.
Within the MSME category, the most significant growth was recorded among small business employers, whose numbers rose by 74% between 2024 and 2025. This increase was the key trend highlighted by CONAMYPE in the business formalization data for that period.
For micro-enterprises, the growth in formal employers was 2.4% during the same period. Although this increase was smaller than that of small businesses, it still contributed to the rising share of MSMEs within the total pool of active formal employers.
The data also reveals a shift in the composition of formal employers. While MSMEs accounted for 86.7% of active formal employers registered with the ISSS in 2024, their share reached 93% by 2025, reflecting a greater presence of this business segment within the formal economy. CONAMYPE noted that formalization opens new opportunities for businesses by facilitating their access to various mechanisms and services designed for the business sector. From this perspective, the growth of formal micro and small enterprise (MSE) employers serves as a key indicator of the development of smaller-scale productive units.
These results show that MSEs continue to play a leading role among the country’s active formal employers. For CONAMYPE, the trends observed between 2024 and 2025 demonstrate that the formalization and growth of micro and small enterprises are integral to the dynamism of the salvadoran business sector.
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