US Counties With the Lowest Business Opening Rates
3,144 US counties ranked by business opening rate, from lowest to highest. First are Baker County, GA (0), Glascock County, GA (0) and Taliaferro County, GA (0). The middle one of the 3,144 has 9.38.
What this measures
Openings as a percentage of the place's business locations (the average of this March and last). This is the Census Bureau's own measure. 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 lowest counties
Every state, lowest first
Each state’s own published figure, not an average of its counties.
| Rank | State | % of establishments |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pennsylvania | 8.26 |
| 2 | Iowa | 8.57 |
| 3 | Ohio | 8.71 |
| 4 | Connecticut | 8.78 |
| 5 | New Hampshire | 8.79 |
| 6 | Wisconsin | 8.84 |
| 7 | Minnesota | 8.89 |
| 8 | Louisiana | 8.93 |
| 9 | Vermont | 8.94 |
| 10 | Nebraska | 8.95 |
| 11 | Mississippi | 9.08 |
| 12 | District of Columbia | 9.13 |
| 13 | West Virginia | 9.17 |
| 14 | Kansas | 9.18 |
| 15 | Hawaii | 9.2 |
| 16 | North Dakota | 9.25 |
| 17 | Rhode Island | 9.28 |
| 18 | Alabama | 9.31 |
| 19 | Kentucky | 9.38 |
| 20 | Maine | 9.42 |
| 21 | Illinois | 9.53 |
| 22 | South Dakota | 9.53 |
| 23 | Massachusetts | 9.6 |
| 24 | Arkansas | 9.62 |
| 25 | Michigan | 9.75 |
| 26 | Maryland | 9.76 |
| 27 | Virginia | 10 |
| 28 | Missouri | 10 |
| 29 | Oklahoma | 10 |
| 30 | Indiana | 10.1 |
| 31 | Oregon | 10.3 |
| 32 | New Mexico | 10.3 |
| 33 | New Jersey | 10.5 |
| 34 | New York | 10.5 |
| 35 | Tennessee | 10.6 |
| 36 | Alaska | 10.7 |
| 37 | South Carolina | 10.7 |
| 38 | North Carolina | 10.7 |
| 39 | Washington | 10.9 |
| 40 | California | 11.4 |
| 41 | Montana | 11.4 |
| 42 | Colorado | 11.8 |
| 43 | Georgia | 11.8 |
| 44 | Texas | 11.8 |
| 45 | Idaho | 12.1 |
| 46 | Arizona | 12.4 |
| 47 | Nevada | 12.5 |
| 48 | Wyoming | 12.7 |
| 49 | Utah | 12.8 |
| 50 | Delaware | 12.8 |
| 51 | Florida | 13.1 |
More on business opening rate
- US Counties With the Highest Business Opening Rates
- Business opening 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.