US Counties With the Highest Net Business Formation Rates
3,144 US counties ranked by net business formation rate, from highest to lowest. First are Kent County, TX (37.5), Treasure County, MT (27.6) and Blaine County, NE (27.3). The middle one of the 3,144 has 0.9.
What this measures
The opening rate minus the closing rate, as a percentage of the place's business locations. It is positive when more businesses open than close. Source: Census Business Dynamics Statistics.
For most measures, a national ranking mostly sorts places by income and by how urban they are. Each county’s own page compares it with the 50 counties most like it instead, which is often the fairer view.
The 100 highest counties
Every state, highest first
Each state’s own published figure, not an average of its counties.
| Rank | State | % of establishments |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Delaware | 2.86 |
| 2 | Texas | 2.46 |
| 3 | Wyoming | 2.42 |
| 4 | Utah | 2.3 |
| 5 | Florida | 2.2 |
| 6 | Arizona | 2.16 |
| 7 | South Carolina | 2.11 |
| 8 | Tennessee | 1.89 |
| 9 | Nevada | 1.78 |
| 10 | Montana | 1.71 |
| 11 | Indiana | 1.7 |
| 12 | North Carolina | 1.64 |
| 13 | Idaho | 1.63 |
| 14 | Arkansas | 1.57 |
| 15 | Georgia | 1.56 |
| 16 | Alaska | 1.56 |
| 17 | Michigan | 1.32 |
| 18 | North Dakota | 1.26 |
| 19 | South Dakota | 1.18 |
| 20 | Kentucky | 1.17 |
| 21 | Massachusetts | 1.16 |
| 22 | California | 1.15 |
| 23 | Oklahoma | 1.13 |
| 24 | Alabama | 1.07 |
| 25 | Virginia | 1.07 |
| 26 | New Mexico | 1.03 |
| 27 | New Jersey | 0.927 |
| 28 | Louisiana | 0.878 |
| 29 | West Virginia | 0.855 |
| 30 | Kansas | 0.851 |
| 31 | New York | 0.839 |
| 32 | Maine | 0.792 |
| 33 | Wisconsin | 0.748 |
| 34 | Nebraska | 0.739 |
| 35 | Maryland | 0.631 |
| 36 | Colorado | 0.615 |
| 37 | Ohio | 0.555 |
| 38 | Mississippi | 0.533 |
| 39 | Washington | 0.519 |
| 40 | Rhode Island | 0.509 |
| 41 | Missouri | 0.456 |
| 42 | Oregon | 0.435 |
| 43 | Hawaii | 0.414 |
| 44 | Illinois | 0.391 |
| 45 | Vermont | 0.374 |
| 46 | Connecticut | 0.309 |
| 47 | Minnesota | 0.295 |
| 48 | New Hampshire | 0.27 |
| 49 | District of Columbia | 0.263 |
| 50 | Iowa | 0.159 |
| 51 | Pennsylvania | 0.103 |
More on net business formation rate
- US Counties With the Lowest Net Business Formation Rates
- Net business formation rate by US county: map by year and what it goes with
A ranking describes places, not the people in them, and a high or low place does not by itself say why. All US rankings.