Best state to start a business? It’s not North Carolina, says new study

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – North Carolina is NOT the best state in the United States to start a business, says a new study.

In fact, the nation’s ninth largest state in terms of population comes in 14th place, according to financial services site WalletHub which routinely provides reports on business development issues from startups to best places to build a business in small towns and metro areas.

Interestingly, in two other recent WalletHub studies, Raleigh, Durham and Charlotte ranked in the top 10 of large metros as best places to start a business. Among smaller cities, Wilson and Salisbury cracked the top 20.

North Carolina, which is annually considered as a top five destination for businesses (No. 2 in 2018) by publications such as Site Selection magazine, also scored well – 10th place – in a WalletHub study of states’ economic performance.

Source: WalletHub

But in the latest report, the Tar Heel state’s rankings across the three key categories in the study tell the tale:

No. 24 in business environment
No. 10 in access to resources
No. 22 in business costs.

Overall, North Carolina scored 50.86 points on the WalletHub scale.

“We evaluated those dimensions using 26 relevant metrics, which are listed below with their corresponding weights. Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the most favorable conditions for new-business creation,” WalletHub says.

“Finally, we determined each state’s weighted average across all metrics to calculate its overall score and used the resulting scores to rank-order our sample.”

Texas came in No. 1 at 61.05 points.

The top 10: