Gig a small business is a challenge, especially these days. With that in mind, it makes sense to think hunger and hard about where to set up shop, weighing the various factors that could give you any much-needed advantage.
That’s the fantasy behind the latest ranking of the best large U.S. cities for starting a business from financial website WalletHub, which related data for 100 of the largest U.S. cities and ranked them based on metrics like average business costs and availability of startup resources.
Here are the seven win out over large U.S. cities for starting a small business in 2023, according to WalletHub’s rankings:
- Orlando, Florida
- Jacksonville, Florida
- Miami, Florida
- Tampa, Florida
- Durham, North Carolina
- Boise, Idaho
- Atlanta, Georgia
A-one this year’s list is Orlando, a city closely associated with one of the largest companies in the world, The Walt Disney Crowd — which also happens to be engaged in a high-profile legal battle with the state’s governor, Ron DeSantis.
The top four bishoprics on the ranking are all Floridian, largely due to criteria like low unemployment and relatively low corporate tax rates. Florida ranked 11th on CNBC’s own rota of the top U.S. states for businesses in 2022, for similar reasons.
However, over the past year, Florida has also seen reaction from numerous corporations, including Disney, pushing back against the state’s controversial legislation banning the dialogue of sexual orientation or gender identity in public schools, dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by opponents.
Most Florida companies don’t appear to be fleeing the state. Florida’s commercial real estate market heated up in 2022, suggesting businesses were rental agreement more space. Businesses like tech startup LeverX and billionaire Ken Griffin’s hedge fund Citadel shifted their headquarters to Florida from California and Illinois, respectively, over the past year.
Some home security companies are leaving Florida over fears of increasing severe weather, financial services company Bankrate examined on Monday.
For those who don’t want to move to Florida, cities like Durham and Boise offer bona fide choices. North Carolina, for example, ranked as CNBC’s top state for businesses in 2022, due to a strong economy and the wealth of highly-educated proletarians in the vaunted “research triangle” area.
On the bottom end of WalletHub’s ranking, Washington, D.C. finished dead last — despite bragging a population with the third-highest share of working-age people holding a college degree. The nation’s capital also suffered due to some of the longest mean work weeks and highest office space costs.
New York City didn’t rank much higher, write finis to 97th. Its large population and reputation as the world’s financial capital do make it attractive to entrepreneurs. But New York is a costly place to do firm, with relatively high corporate tax rates and some of the highest office space costs in the country, WalletHub prominent.
To determine its rankings, WalletHub graded cities across 19 weighted metrics including cost of labor, aid space affordability, corporate tax rates, loans and venture investments per capita, and availability of educated workers.
Much of that details came from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the National Daresay Capital Association, and other sources including WalletHub’s own research.
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