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Self-employed businesses per 1,000: U.S. states ranked (2023)

Measure: Self-employed businesses per 1,000 residents (derived). All 50 states and District of Columbia with data in Self-employed businesses without employees by state, ranked from highest to lowest. Reference period: 2023.

Licence: Public domain (U.S. federal government work).
Data last updated: 2026-11-09

Download full table CSV Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics (opens in a new tab)Source: U.S. Census Bureau (opens in a new tab)

National value: 90.4 (United States).

Small states, hard to see on the map:

DC 95.2
RI 86.5
DE 89.8
CT 89.5
NJ 94
MD 96.5
MA 89.6
VT 100.4
NH 82.9

Lowest: 53.5 to 76.7
Group 2: 76.7 to 82.5
Group 3: 82.5 to 88.2
Group 4: 88.2 to 94
Highest: 94 to 136

The map is a visual summary; every value is in the table below, which is the keyboard and screen-reader path. Groups are quintiles of the values shown (a derived grouping). Boundaries: Natural Earth (public domain), simplified. Alaska and Hawaii are shown as insets, not to scale.

Rank is derived by Quadranac: 1 = highest value; ties share a rank. The ranked value is itself derived; see the source table for the method. Values are as published in the source table.

Note: Nonemployer businesses include sole proprietors, gig workers and landlords with no paid employees.


1	Florida	136
2	Wyoming	112.5
3	Georgia	105.2
4	Colorado	102.8
5	Texas	100.7
6	Vermont	100.4
7	New York	100.3
8	Montana	97
9	Maryland	96.5
10	District of Columbia	95.2
11	New Jersey	94
12	Nevada	93.4
13	Louisiana	91
14	Tennessee	90.8
15	Maine	90.7
16	California	90.3
17	Delaware	89.8
18	Massachusetts	89.6
19	Connecticut	89.5
20	Illinois	88.7
21	Utah	88.2
22	Rhode Island	86.5
23	Mississippi	86.1
24	Virginia	84.8
25	North Carolina	84.6
26	Hawaii	84.1
27	Idaho	83.8
28	Alaska	83.5
29	New Hampshire	82.9
30	South Carolina	82.7
31	South Dakota	82.5
32	Michigan	81
33	Oklahoma	80.6
34	Arizona	80.3
35	Arkansas	79.7
36	Minnesota	78.8
37	Missouri	78.2
38	Nebraska	77.9
39	Oregon	77.5
40	Ohio	77
41	North Dakota	76.7
42	Alabama	76
43	Kansas	74.3
44	Kentucky	73.8
45	Pennsylvania	73.4
46	Iowa	71.2
47	Indiana	70.7
48	Washington	69.6
49	Wisconsin	67
50	New Mexico	66.1
51	West Virginia	53.5

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics, Nonemployer Statistics 2023 (API dataset 2023/nonemp), all sectors (NAICS 00)
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Population Estimates Program, July 1, 2023 resident population (denominator). Reference period: 2023.

Cite this ranking

U.S. states ranked by self-employed businesses per 1,000 residents (derived) (2023). Data: U.S. Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics, Nonemployer Statistics 2023 (API dataset 2023/nonemp), all sectors (NAICS 00); rank derived by Quadranac. Data last updated 2026-11-09. https://quadranac.com/rankings/us-states-by-self-employed-businesses-per-1000-residents/

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