Florida’s large cities are the best in the nation to start a business.
That’s according to a new study published by WalletHub, which found that the Sunshine State’s biggest cities are so business friendly, there’s little room for any other states in the top tier.
The firm compared 100 large cities across the country using 19 different factors including five-year business survival rate, costs of labor and affordability of office space. Using the different metrics, WalletHub established a scoring system with Tampa at the top registering a 64.5.
WalletHub analysts raved about the city’s strengths.
“Tampa is the best large city for starting a small business, in part, because it has a low corporate tax rate, allowing businesses to keep more of their revenue. It also has a high number of investors per capita, and the combination of low taxes and high capital gives businesses more resources to survive the difficult initial years,” WalletHub analysts concluded.
In fact, Florida cities made up the entirety of the Top 5. Tampa was followed by Orlando at No. 2, Jacksonville at No. 3, Hialeah at No. 4 and St. Petersburg at No. 5. Miami elbowed out other metros by placing No. 10. No other Florida cities made the list.
Tampa had the third-highest business environment ranking and placed seventh in access to business resources. Tampa was dinged for business costs, coming in at No. 37 in the country.
Orlando scored 63.74 and ranked first in business environment. Jacksonville scored 62.08 and came in fourth for business environment.
The nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., was rated the worst large city to start a business coming in at No. 100. That was preceded by San Jose, California, at No. 99 and Honolulu at No. 98.
The high rankings for Florida’s large metro areas come on the heels of another recent WalletHub analysis that praised Florida’s small towns as strong spots to start a business, with eight locales in the Top 20.
