Financial advice website WalletHub ranked Florida as the top state in the nation for starting a business in 2025. California and New York, Florida’s typical business rivals, ranked 16th and 40th, respectively. The following is an excerpt from the report released earlier today.
“Florida is the best state to start a business in 2025, with the second-highest number of businesses per capita and the highest percentage of adults engaged in entrepreneurship. It increased nearly 16% between 2016 and 2022, making it the fourth-highest rate in the nation.
There are good reasons why so many people start businesses in Florida, including the fact that Florida has the 11th highest business revenue growth rate and the 10th lowest corporate taxes.
Given the prevalence of retirement in Florida, you might think the workforce is shrinking, but the opposite is actually true. In fact, Florida’s working-age population (ages 16-64) is growing faster than all but six other states. Additionally, Florida has the third highest percentage of workers who say they are passionate and engaged in their jobs. ”
methodology
To determine the best and worst states to start a business, WalletHub compared 50 states across three key dimensions: 1) business environment, 2) access to resources, and 3) cost of doing business .
We assessed these dimensions using 25 relevant indicators. These indicators are listed below with their corresponding weights. Each indicator is evaluated on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the most favorable conditions for new business creation.
Finally, we calculated an overall score by determining each state’s weighted average across all metrics and used the resulting scores to rank the sample.
