Business applications by state
People filed 6,020,322 business applications in the United States over the 12 months to June 2026, or 17.7 for every 1,000 residents. Florida filed the most of any state at 695,943. Wyoming filed the most per resident at 143.2 per 1,000, a figure that reflects where paperwork is registered rather than where businesses operate.
All 51 states ranked
Ranked by total applications over the 12 months to June 2026. The rate column divides that count by resident population, so a small state with heavy registration traffic rises even when its total is low. Ten states link to a page carrying their own 24-month series.
Reading the per-resident column
Wyoming recorded 143.2 applications per 1,000 residents, about 8 times the national rate, and Delaware recorded 57.5. Neither figure describes how many businesses opened on those states' main streets. Both sell registration to non-residents, so a filing is counted where the paperwork was sent while the company often operates elsewhere. 18 of the 51 states sit above the national rate of 17.7. Read the column as filing volume against population, not as a measure of local business activity.
Where filings grew, and where they fell
49 of 51 states filed more applications than in the prior 12 months. Kentucky grew fastest at 38.7%. Oregon and Washington were the only states to decline.
Which applications look like employers
BFS marks a subset of applications as high-propensity, meaning the form carries signals that the business is likely to hire: a corporate structure, a stated business purpose, a planned wage date. That share varies more between states than the totals do. New York reports 37.3% against 22.9% in Kentucky. Kentucky sits at both ends of this page: the fastest growth in filings and the smallest share of them carrying employer signals.
What this counts
An application is a request for an Employer Identification Number that carries business intent. It is not a formed company and not a Secretary of State filing, so these counts run higher than any state's LLC register. Figures are 12-month sums of the monthly not-seasonally-adjusted series, which is why every table states the window instead of calling it a year.
The rate column uses American Community Survey 1-year population for 2024, a separate Census survey with its own reference period. BFS also publishes Puerto Rico and four Census regions in the same series. Those rows are left out here so every line is a state or the District of Columbia. The methodology page documents each series and its limits, and the monthly Index report carries the national release with sector detail.
Source: BusinessFormation.us analysis of U.S. Census Bureau BFS and ACS 2024 population. 12 months to June 2026. businessformation.us/data/business-applications-by-state/