Virginia is again on the rise. The Commonwealth landed at No. 3 in CNBC’s 2026 “America’s Top States for Business” ranking, launched July 9 — up a spot from No. 4 final 12 months and a welcome reversal for a state that has spent almost twenty years close to the high of the annual scorecard.
Ohio claimed the No. 1 spot for the first time in the rating’s 20-year historical past, adopted by North Carolina at No. 2. Texas and Minnesota rounded out the high 5. Virginia has been named the nation’s high state for enterprise a document six occasions, most lately in 2024, earlier than federal workforce cuts concentrated in Northern Virginia helped knock it to fourth in 2025 — its weakest displaying since 2018.
For a area like Alexandria, the place the native economic system is tightly wound into the federal workforce, the contractors who rely upon it, and the data-center increase in close by counties, the numbers are greater than a speaking level.
The governor’s take
In a statement from her office, Gov. Abigail Spanberger framed the climb as proof that the Commonwealth is weathering financial headwinds popping out of Washington. “Since I took office, I have been focused on growing a stronger, more resilient economy — despite the economic uncertainty coming out of Washington, resulting in rising costs, and deep cuts to our federal workforce,” Spanberger stated. “In six months, we have demonstrated success in doing just that; we have brought more than $5 billion in new business investment to communities across the Commonwealth, creating more than 3,000 new jobs.”
She continued: “Virginia’s rise in the rankings reflects strategic investments that are helping companies succeed in our Commonwealth. Companies the world over know that Virginia has a reputation as a business environment where world-class talent, leading infrastructure, and a collaborative approach to economic and community development give companies the confidence to grow here.”
In a cellphone interview with Virginia Mercury the identical day, the governor pointed to affordability as an under-the-radar driver. “It isn’t just that the cost of doing business has improved; it’s that the cost of living has improved,” she stated, crediting a slate of housing, healthcare and vitality legal guidelines she signed this 12 months — measures she argued make Virginia extra enticing to each employers and the staff they hope to preserve.
Secretary of Commerce and Trade Carrie Chenery credited collaboration throughout ranges of presidency. “Virginia’s business climate is built on partnership,” she stated. “By working together across state, regional, and local levels, we have created an environment where companies of all sizes can move faster, access exceptional talent, innovate, invest, and scale.”
What truly modified — the methodology instructed the story
Here’s the twist: Virginia rose a spot though its economic system rating acquired worse. The state’s economic system class rating slid from No. 14 to No. 23, as CNBC once more tied the drop to federal funds and personnel cuts that fall closely on Northern Virginia.
What lifted Virginia was much less a couple of single new power and extra about which strengths CNBC selected to reward. Each 12 months the community re-weights its 10 classes to mirror how states are pitching themselves. In 2025, amid recession worries, economic system carried the most weight — dangerous information for a federally uncovered state. In 2026, infrastructure grew to become the heaviest-weighted class, with economic system dropping to second and workforce third. CNBC additionally factored in ease of allowing for the first time.
That reshuffle performed straight to Virginia’s hand. The Commonwealth held its No. 2 infrastructure rating for a second straight 12 months — its single finest class — buoyed by the Port of Virginia’s newly accomplished dredging that created the deepest, widest delivery channels on the East Coast, ongoing Interstate 81 hall upgrades, and the world’s largest focus of information facilities, which counts towards the examine’s measures of large-scale computing energy and vitality capability.
Virginia’s rating rose or held regular in seven of the ten classes. The Virginia Economic Development Partnership famous the state completed in the high 10 in six of them.
The vivid spots past infrastructure: Virginia climbed in workforce (No. 14 to No. 10), expertise and innovation (No. 8 to No. 6), high quality of life (No. 8 to No. 7) and value of doing enterprise, a longtime weak spot, which improved from No. 31 to No. 26. The smooth spots, other than the economic system slide, had been training — which fell from a No. 1 end to No. 5 amid political turbulence throughout the state’s universities — and enterprise friendliness, down from No. 7 to No. 11 throughout a divisive session-long battle over how to tax the knowledge facilities clustered in Northern Virginia.
By the factors tally, Virginia scored 1,595 out of a doable 2,500, up from 1,578 a 12 months earlier, and trailing No. 1 Ohio’s 1,623 and North Carolina’s 1,614.
The workforce play
The governor’s workplace leaned hardest on expertise growth as the throughline. Virginia’s Virginia Talent Accelerator Program was lately ranked the No. 1 custom-made workforce coaching program in the nation for the fourth consecutive 12 months by Business Facilities journal, and InternshipsVA — a statewide paid-internship initiative Spanberger launched in February — earned a nationwide financial growth award final month. Lawmakers additionally allotted one other $50 million to the Virginia Business Ready Sites Program this biennium to preserve shovel-ready industrial websites in the pipeline.
Regional enterprise leaders echoed the optimism. In the Northern Virginia Chamber’s newest quarterly survey, 40% of enterprise leaders stated they anticipate the regional economic system to develop over the subsequent six months — the highest studying since late 2025 — whereas simply 6% anticipated layoffs, the lowest on document for that query.
The governor, for her half, is not treating No. 3 as a end line. Her said aim: get Virginia again to No. 1, the place it has stood six occasions earlier than.
What it means for Alexandria
The statewide numbers land shut to dwelling. The identical federal-workforce publicity that pulled Virginia’s economic system rating down is the central problem Alexandria named in ALX Forward, the financial framework City Council adopted in January — a plan candid about the metropolis’s reliance on federal jobs, rising workplace vacancies from the shift to distant work, and a tax base leaning closely on owners. In March, Rep. Don Beyer’s workplace joined regional companions on a useful resource honest for federal staff and contractors caught in the cuts.
At the identical time, Alexandria embodies the innovation pitch driving Virginia’s rise. The National Innovation Quarter, launched in February with the Alexandria Economic Development Partnership and Virginia Tech amongst the founding companions, spans Alexandria and Arlington with a mission to speed up next-generation expertise. Paired with the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus taking form at Potomac Yard, the metropolis is a working instance of the talent-and-technology story the Commonwealth is promoting — the very classes, infrastructure and innovation, that carried Virginia up a notch this 12 months.
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