A business route in the United States is a short special route that branches off a parent numbered highway at its beginning, continues through the central business district of a nearby city or town, and finally reconnects with the same parent numbered highway at the business route's end. Their designation is often intended to direct traffic to the business districts bypassed when a new highway is constructed some distance away.

In road transportation in the United States, a special route is a road in a numbered highway system that diverts a specific segment of related traffic away from another road. They are featured in many highway systems; most are found in the Interstate Highway System, U.S. highway system, and several state highway systems. Each type of special route possesses generally defined characteristics and has a defined relationship with its parent route. Typically, special routes share a route number with a dominant route, often referred as the "parent" or "mainline", and are given either a descriptor which may be used either before or after the route name, such as Alternate or Business, or a letter suffix that is attached to the route number. For example, an alternate route of U.S. Route 1 may be called "Alternate U.S. Route 1", "U.S. Route 1 Alternate", or "U.S. Route 1A". Occasionally, a special route will have both a descriptor and a suffix, such as U.S. Route 1A Business.