North Carolina has reclaimed the highest spot as America’s best state for business, edging out Texas and Florida in CNBC’s 2025 annual rating and reinforcing the state’s fame as a number one vacation spot for employers, funding and financial development. The honor marks the third time in 4 years that North Carolina has completed No. 1. It narrowly misplaced the title to neighboring Virginia final 12 months.
The rating is a degree of delight for state leaders and financial builders who routinely cite business local weather metrics when courting new employers, company expansions and main occasions. This 12 months’s comeback comes regardless of lingering considerations about tariffs, pure disasters and broader financial uncertainty. Virginia slipped to fourth place, its lowest standing since 2018, whereas Texas ranked second and Florida third.
CNBC credited North Carolina’s continued momentum, noting that final 12 months’s runner-up end did little to gradual the circulate of recent funding. The community pointed to current bulletins from corporations akin to JetZero and Amazon, in addition to monetary companies expansions in Charlotte. Just this week, Citigroup and AssetMark stated they might add a whole bunch of jobs within the area. Earlier this summer time, California-based BuildOps introduced plans for a large Raleigh workplace, whereas Amazon disclosed a multibillion-dollar funding tied to new knowledge facilities in jap North Carolina.
CNBC evaluates all 50 states throughout 10 weighted classes, awarding as much as 2,500 factors. North Carolina completed with 1,614 factors, bolstered by a robust exhibiting within the financial system class, the place it positioned third behind Florida and Texas. The research cited strong gross home product development and strong job features over the previous 12 months. “While no state is more politically divided than deep purple North Carolina, both parties seem to agree on the importance of keeping business happy,” CNBC’s report famous.
The rating additionally highlighted weaknesses. The state positioned close to the underside nationally in high quality of life, with CNBC pointing to restricted employee protections and gaps in antidiscrimination legal guidelines. The state’s business local weather was described as susceptible to disasters, commerce disruptions and potential fallout from well being care coverage adjustments. The financial impression of Hurricane Helene, which struck late in 2024, was not included within the evaluation.
Reaction from state leaders was swift. Republican lawmakers, together with House Speaker Destin Hall (R-Granite Falls) and Rep. Brenden Jones (R-Columbus), credited GOP-led reforms for the end result. Democratic Gov. Josh Stein struck a bipartisan tone, thanking former Gov. Roy Cooper and lawmakers from each events, saying the state’s individuals, universities, group faculties and infrastructure proceed to assist companies and employees thrive.