The Best States to Buy a Business
Ranked by Buyable Targets
Establishments with 5 to 99 employees in the 36 covered trades: the businesses a searcher could actually buy. The per-100k column shows density.
| 1 | California | 137,681 | 349.2 | Los Angeles |
| 2 | Texas | 97,820 | 312.6 | Harris |
| 3 | Florida | 74,917 | 320.5 | Miami-Dade |
| 4 | New York | 64,697 | 325.6 | New York |
| 5 | Pennsylvania | 44,963 | 343.8 | Allegheny |
| 6 | Illinois | 42,174 | 331.8 | Cook |
| 7 | Ohio | 41,505 | 349.3 | Franklin |
| 8 | North Carolina | 39,632 | 358.8 | Wake |
| 9 | Georgia | 36,421 | 325.7 | Fulton |
| 10 | Michigan | 34,085 | 336.1 | Oakland |
| 11 | New Jersey | 31,865 | 335.4 | Bergen |
| 12 | Virginia | 31,567 | 358.3 | Fairfax |
| 13 | Washington | 28,222 | 354.6 | King |
| 14 | Massachusetts | 27,394 | 383.9 | Middlesex |
| 15 | Indiana | 23,903 | 345.2 | Marion |
| 16 | Tennessee | 23,855 | 330 | Davidson |
| 17 | Arizona | 23,735 | 313 | Maricopa |
| 18 | Colorado | 23,585 | 395.9 | Denver |
| 19 | Missouri | 22,224 | 355.8 | St. Louis |
| 20 | Wisconsin | 21,765 | 365.1 | Milwaukee |
| 21 | Minnesota | 20,943 | 361.5 | Hennepin |
| 22 | Maryland | 20,716 | 330.8 | Montgomery |
| 23 | South Carolina | 18,930 | 345.5 | Greenville |
| 24 | Oregon | 16,968 | 397.2 | Multnomah |
| 25 | Alabama | 16,540 | 320.7 | Jefferson |
| 26 | Louisiana | 16,009 | 348.2 | East Baton Rouge Parish |
| 27 | Kentucky | 14,943 | 325.7 | Jefferson |
| 28 | Oklahoma | 14,213 | 347 | Oklahoma |
| 29 | Connecticut | 13,789 | 375.2 | Capitol |
| 30 | Iowa | 11,982 | 369.6 | Polk |
| 31 | Utah | 11,876 | 339 | Salt Lake |
| 32 | Nevada | 11,315 | 346.3 | Clark |
| 33 | Kansas | 10,949 | 368.6 | Johnson |
| 34 | Arkansas | 10,505 | 340.1 | Pulaski |
| 35 | Mississippi | 9,700 | 329.6 | Harrison |
| 36 | Nebraska | 8,187 | 408.2 | Douglas |
| 37 | Idaho | 7,784 | 388.9 | Ada |
| 38 | New Mexico | 7,050 | 330.9 | Bernalillo |
| 39 | New Hampshire | 6,072 | 430.9 | Hillsborough |
| 40 | West Virginia | 5,827 | 329.2 | Kanawha |
| 41 | Maine | 5,803 | 413 | Cumberland |
| 42 | Montana | 4,973 | 437.3 | Yellowstone |
| 43 | Hawaii | 4,831 | 334.1 | Honolulu |
| 44 | Rhode Island | 4,330 | 389.3 | Providence |
| 45 | Delaware | 3,870 | 367.9 | New Castle |
| 46 | South Dakota | 3,651 | 394.8 | Minnehaha |
| 47 | North Dakota | 3,278 | 411.5 | Cass |
| 48 | Vermont | 2,695 | 415.6 | Chittenden |
| 49 | Wyoming | 2,640 | 449.3 | Natrona |
| 50 | Washington, D.C. | 2,578 | 367.1 | District of Columbia |
| 51 | Alaska | 2,561 | 346 | Anchorage Municipality |
Method & Source
Buyable counts are establishments with 5 to 99 employees in the 36 covered trades, from the Census County Business Patterns (2023). The per-100k column divides that by Census resident-population estimates. The financing figures on each state page are SBA change-of-ownership 7(a) approvals from the SBA 7(a) FOIA loan-level dataset (as of June 30, 2026), covering FY2020 through FY2025. The count is a lower bound on the market: cash and conventionally financed deals are not in the SBA file, and a trade we have not written a guide for is not in the total. Industry pricing and diligence live in the Guides.