Top States for Business in America 2026: Full rankings
To rank America’s Best States for Business in 2026, CNBC scored all 50 states on 138 metrics across 10 broad competitiveness categories. Now in its 20th year, the basics of the study remain the same: determining the factors companies consider when making site selection decisions and where states focus their economic development efforts to win jobs and business. Each category is weighted by how often states use them as selling points.
The Best States categories have been largely consistent since our first study in 2007, but we reweight our categories annually to reflect market dynamics. The biggest change in 2026: Our top category is infrastructure, as companies seek strategic locations close to transportation hubs, high-end utilities, access to clean water, and abundant energy to power things like advanced manufacturing and data centers. And they want all this without bureaucracy. We also take into account the ease of allowing our first rankings in 2026.
As President Donald Trump’s second term agenda takes shape, Economy, which was last year’s top category, drops to second place, followed by Labor. The national skills gap persists, but the job market has cooled and AI has boosted productivity.
According to our methodology, states can earn a maximum of 2,500 points. The states with the highest scores are America’s Best States for Business.
