Virginia is for business lovers. CNBC has named the commonwealth its top state for business climate for the third time in the last five years.
CNBC has ranked the business climate of the states since 2007, and Virginia has now been named the best a record-breaking sixth time, finishing in the top half of the annual study’s 10 categories, CNBC said. North Carolina came in first in 2023 and 2022, with Virginia taking the top spot in 2021 and 2019.
The study was not done in 2020 due to the pandemic.
The rating is determined, in part, by how much a state cites it as a selling point to prospective businesses. In order of importance, CNBC measures infrastructure, workforce, economy, quality of life, cost of doing business, technology and innovation, business friendliness, education, access to capital and cost of living.
Virginia finished first in education, third in infrastructure, fifth in business friendliness, eighth in access to capital, ninth in workforce, 11th in economy, 15th in technology, 19th in quality of life, 19th in cost of living and 24th in terms of the cost of doing business.
The commonwealth has 121 million people within a day’s drive, and northern Virginia in particular has many data centers with an estimated 70% of all global internet traffic flowing through them, CNBC said. It also has an abundance of sites ready for construction.
“Virginia works really hard to listen to companies, and companies are telling us that they need these ready sites,” Virginia Economic Development Partnership Vice President of Real Estate Solutions Michael Dreiling told CNBC.
On the other side of the Potomac River, Maryland rated much worse, coming in as the nation’s 31st best state for business overall.
Maryland came in eighth for technology and innovation, 14th for education and 16th in both access to capital and quality of life. Conversely, it came in a dismal 47th in terms of the cost of doing business and 37th in both infrastructure and business friendliness.
The other states in the top 10 were, in order: North Carolina, Texas, Georgia, Florida, Minnesota, Ohio, Tennessee, Michigan and Washington state.
The five worst states for business were Hawaii, Mississippi, Alaska, Louisiana and Montana.