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State-By-State Rankings For Women-Owned Businesses in the U.S.


How does your state rank when it comes to women-owned small businesses? What's the best way to measure success for female entrepreneurs?

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Businesses owned and operated by women are a rapidly growing part of the U.S. economy. Over the last 20 years, the number of businesses that are owned (at least 51 percent) by a female partner has shot up by 114 percent. By comparison, overall business growth hovers around 44 percent. These women-owned businesses have created 9 million jobs and generated an estimated $1.7 trillion in revenue over that same timeframe.

With that in mind, MaxFilings set out to determine which states have been the best for women-owned businesses. This isn't necessarily an easy thing to quantify. While it's true that the raw volume of women-owned businesses is usually more a reflection of a state's population size, there are other important factors—like tax structure to the business lending environment—that affect all businesses equally, regardless of their ownership.

There are two rankings, though, that can give us a good sense of how female entrepreneurs are faring. The first is the percentage of women-owned businesses on a per-capita basis. The other is how fast these businesses are growing.

So without further ado, here are the 10 best and worst states based on the metrics of per-capita female business ownership and growth rate of women-owned businesses. At the end is a chart showing all 50 states (plus the District of Columbia) and how they rank in both categories.

Best & worst states by percentage of female business ownership


TOP 10     BOTTOM 10




Top 10: States with the highest percentage of female business owners

State Percentage
District of Columbia 42.7%
Georgia 40.5%
Maryland 39.3%
New Mexico 39.0%
Florida 38.5%
Mississippi 37.9%
Hawaii 37.5%
California 37.2%
Michigan 36.8%
Alabama 36.8%

Bottom 10: States with the lowest percentage of female business owners

State Percentage
Pennsylvania 31.2%
Wyoming 31.0%
Wisconsin 30.9%
Vermont 30.9%
Idaho 30.8%
Utah 30.3%
Maine 30.1%
North Dakota 29.8%
New Hampshire 29.3%
South Dakota 29.2%



Best & worst states by growth rate of women-owned businesses


TOP 10     BOTTOM 10

The growth rate rank is calculated by averaging each state’s percentage of revenue and employment growth of women-owned businesses.




Top 10: States with the highest growth of women-owned businesses

State Growth Rate
Maine 136.5%
North Dakota 103.5%
South Dakota 78.6%
Iowa 59.7%
Wyoming 46.6%
Alaska 46.4%
Texas 46.2%
Minnesota 45.2%
Indiana 38.2%
Delaware 36.8%

Bottom 10: States with the lowest growth of women-owned businesses

State Growth Rate
Massachusetts 12.8%
Louisiana 12.3%
South Carolina 11.1%
Connecticut 10.5%
Illinois 8.0%
Arizona 7.3%
Nebraska 3.6%
New Hampshire 2.5%
Mississippi -0.7%
Arkansas -4.2%

Overall ranking of women-owned business friendly states



BEST 0 - 10   11 - 20   21 - 30   31 - 40   41 - 51 WORST




STATE PER CAPITA RANKING GROWTH RATE RANKING COMBINED RANKING
Texas 12 8 1
Maryland 3 20 2
Georgia 2 22 3
Virginia 17 13 4
Hawaii 7 24 5
New York 18 14 6
Indiana 25 9 7
Michigan 9 27 8
New Mexico 4 32 9
Alaska 32 5 10
Colorado 22 15 11
Tennessee 21 17 12
Washington 23 16 13
Alabama 10 31 14
Minnesota 34 7 15
District of Columbia 1 41 16
Iowa 39 3 17
Oregon 16 26 18
Florida 5 40 19
Rhode Island 35 10 20
California 8 39 21
Nevada 15 33 22
Wyoming 43 6 23
Delaware 31 19 24
Maine 48 2 25
North Carolina 20 30 26
North Dakota 49 1 27
Louisiana 14 37 28
Montana 41 12 29
West Virginia 24 29 30
Kansas 33 21 31
Oklahoma 36 18 32
South Dakota 51 4 33
Mississippi 6 50 34
Illinois 11 46 35
Utah 47 11 36
Arizona 13 47 37
Missouri 27 35 38
South Carolina 19 43 39
Kentucky 37 28 40
Ohio 26 42 41
Vermont 45 23 42
Idaho 46 25 43
Massachusetts 28 44 44
Connecticut 30 45 45
New Jersey 38 38 46
Pennsylvania 42 36 47
Wisconsin 44 34 48
Arkansas 29 51 49
Nebraska 40 48 50
New Hampshire 50 49 51

Data sources:

MaxFilings assumes no responsibility for inaccuracies or for changes in such information that may occur after publication.

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