Official statistics
How many businesses does each Florida county have? The table below shows business establishments with paid employees for all 67 counties, as counted by the U.S. Census Bureau for 2023. These are official statistics, not counts from our own dataset.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023 · reference year 2023 · Content last revised: October 11, 2026
Florida's businesses are concentrated in a few metropolitan counties. Miami-Dade alone has 98,394 establishments, 15.2% of the state; the ten largest counties together have 66.0%. At the other end, Liberty County has 86. Anyone planning a sales territory or a mailing by county should know these proportions before choosing counties.
Counties are sorted by number of establishments. “Largest sector” is the NAICS sector with the most establishments in the county.
Scroll sideways to see the whole table.
| Rank | County | Establishments | Share of state | Paid employees | Largest sector |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Miami-Dade | 98,394 | 15.2% | 1,055,440 | Professional, scientific and technical services (17,799) |
| 2 | Broward | 68,191 | 10.6% | 780,632 | Professional, scientific and technical services (12,432) |
| 3 | Palm Beach | 55,803 | 8.6% | 592,227 | Professional, scientific and technical services (9,891) |
| 4 | Orange | 45,588 | 7.1% | 842,028 | Professional, scientific and technical services (6,883) |
| 5 | Hillsborough | 42,977 | 6.7% | 697,689 | Professional, scientific and technical services (6,864) |
| 6 | Pinellas | 32,509 | 5.0% | 425,004 | Professional, scientific and technical services (5,256) |
| 7 | Duval | 28,342 | 4.4% | 508,104 | Professional, scientific and technical services (3,548) |
| 8 | Lee | 22,756 | 3.5% | 264,855 | Construction (3,887) |
| 9 | Sarasota | 15,989 | 2.5% | 162,310 | Professional, scientific and technical services (2,199) |
| 10 | Brevard | 15,510 | 2.4% | 205,503 | Professional, scientific and technical services (2,061) |
| 11 | Seminole | 14,897 | 2.3% | 193,461 | Professional, scientific and technical services (2,237) |
| 12 | Collier | 14,541 | 2.3% | 151,907 | Construction (2,113) |
| 13 | Volusia | 14,367 | 2.2% | 164,490 | Retail trade (2,026) |
| 14 | Polk | 13,992 | 2.2% | 232,278 | Retail trade (1,916) |
| 15 | Pasco | 11,975 | 1.9% | 123,042 | Health care and social assistance (1,631) |
| 16 | Manatee | 11,176 | 1.7% | 121,840 | Construction (1,446) |
| 17 | Lake | 8,849 | 1.4% | 96,577 | Construction (1,260) |
| 18 | St. Johns | 8,633 | 1.3% | 80,082 | Professional, scientific and technical services (1,356) |
| 19 | Osceola | 8,617 | 1.3% | 100,837 | Construction (1,134) |
| 20 | Marion | 8,389 | 1.3% | 101,916 | Retail trade (1,177) |
| 21 | Leon | 8,163 | 1.3% | 107,646 | Professional, scientific and technical services (1,496) |
| 22 | Escambia | 7,650 | 1.2% | 120,709 | Retail trade (1,120) |
| 23 | St. Lucie | 7,292 | 1.1% | 74,865 | Construction (1,198) |
| 24 | Alachua | 6,721 | 1.0% | 103,368 | Health care and social assistance (948) |
| 25 | Martin | 6,400 | 1.0% | 67,697 | Professional, scientific and technical services (900) |
| 26 | Okaloosa | 6,011 | 0.9% | 64,766 | Retail trade (865) |
| 27 | Bay | 5,306 | 0.8% | 62,282 | Retail trade (821) |
| 28 | Indian River | 4,820 | 0.7% | 51,628 | Retail trade (619) |
| 29 | Charlotte | 4,601 | 0.7% | 44,163 | Construction (753) |
| 30 | Clay | 4,455 | 0.7% | 48,303 | Construction (662) |
| 31 | Monroe | 4,154 | 0.6% | 37,134 | Retail trade (606) |
| 32 | Hernando | 3,874 | 0.6% | 42,473 | Health care and social assistance (582) |
| 33 | Santa Rosa | 3,442 | 0.5% | 32,335 | Construction (512) |
| 34 | Walton | 3,348 | 0.5% | 26,994 | Real estate and rental and leasing (525) |
| 35 | Citrus | 3,063 | 0.5% | 31,162 | Retail trade (444) |
| 36 | Flagler | 2,698 | 0.4% | 22,871 | Construction (420) |
| 37 | Nassau | 2,261 | 0.4% | 21,651 | Retail trade (296) |
| 38 | Highlands | 2,138 | 0.3% | 22,996 | Retail trade (329) |
| 39 | Sumter | 2,081 | 0.3% | 31,813 | Health care and social assistance (290) |
| 40 | Columbia | 1,492 | 0.2% | 20,689 | Retail trade (262) |
| 41 | Putnam | 1,331 | 0.2% | 13,231 | Construction (227) |
| 42 | Okeechobee | 922 | 0.1% | 7,980 | Construction (152) |
| 43 | Levy | 886 | 0.1% | 7,282 | Retail trade (164) |
| 44 | Jackson | 799 | 0.1% | 9,841 | Retail trade (170) |
| 45 | Hendry | 772 | 0.1% | 8,052 | Construction (132) |
| 46 | Suwannee | 755 | 0.1% | 9,268 | Retail trade (137) |
| 47 | Gadsden | 734 | 0.1% | 9,539 | Construction (135) |
| 48 | DeSoto | 566 | 0.1% | 6,281 | Construction (103) |
| 49 | Wakulla | 509 | 0.1% | 4,357 | Construction (99) |
| 50 | Baker | 461 | 0.1% | 6,203 | Construction (82) |
| 51 | Bradford | 460 | 0.1% | 4,826 | Retail trade (85) |
| 52 | Washington | 445 | 0.1% | 4,041 | Construction (78) |
| 53 | Hardee | 436 | 0.1% | 4,829 | Retail trade (66) |
| 54 | Taylor | 435 | 0.1% | 4,673 | Retail trade (93) |
| 55 | Gulf | 405 | 0.1% | 2,779 | Construction (72) |
| 56 | Madison | 328 | 0.1% | 3,264 | Retail trade (61) |
| 57 | Franklin | 324 | 0.1% | 2,315 | Retail trade (70) |
| 58 | Holmes | 300 | 0.0% | 2,142 | Construction (59) |
| 59 | Gilchrist | 295 | 0.0% | 2,222 | Construction (60) |
| 60 | Jefferson | 289 | 0.0% | 1,979 | Construction (49) |
| 61 | Dixie | 216 | 0.0% | 1,809 | Retail trade (48) |
| 62 | Calhoun | 185 | 0.0% | 1,657 | Retail trade (38) |
| 63 | Hamilton | 160 | 0.0% | 1,760 | Retail trade (39) |
| 64 | Union | 148 | 0.0% | 1,586 | Retail trade (29) |
| 65 | Glades | 134 | 0.0% | 1,250 | Construction (21) |
| 66 | Lafayette | 112 | 0.0% | 687 | Other services (21) |
| 67 | Liberty | 86 | 0.0% | 1,082 | Construction (14) |
The county rows add up to 643,958. A further 1,617 establishments are reported as “statewide”: employers without a fixed location within the state. To protect the confidentiality of individual businesses, the Census Bureau applies a disclosure-avoidance method (noise infusion) to employee figures; see the methodology.
Sales territories often follow metropolitan areas rather than single counties. Added up from the county figures above:
The groupings are ours and are for orientation only; they are not official metropolitan statistical areas.
In 24 of the 67 counties the sector with the most establishments is construction; retail trade leads in 24, professional, scientific and technical services leads in 13, health care and social assistance leads in 4. Statewide, the picture by sector looks like this:
| NAICS | Sector | Establishments | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 54 | Professional, scientific and technical services | 94,623 | 14.7% |
| 44-45 | Retail trade | 75,988 | 11.8% |
| 62 | Health care and social assistance | 73,984 | 11.5% |
| 23 | Construction | 68,008 | 10.5% |
| 81 | Other services | 55,496 | 8.6% |
| 72 | Accommodation and food services | 48,853 | 7.6% |
| 53 | Real estate and rental and leasing | 47,772 | 7.4% |
| 56 | Administrative, support and waste services | 42,614 | 6.6% |
| 52 | Finance and insurance | 36,230 | 5.6% |
| 42 | Wholesale trade | 30,723 | 4.8% |
| 48-49 | Transportation and warehousing | 20,621 | 3.2% |
| 31-33 | Manufacturing | 14,341 | 2.2% |
| 71 | Arts, entertainment and recreation | 11,208 | 1.7% |
| 51 | Information | 10,336 | 1.6% |
| 61 | Educational services | 8,805 | 1.4% |
| 55 | Management of companies | 2,682 | 0.4% |
| 11 | Forestry, fishing and agricultural support | 1,227 | 0.2% |
| 22 | Utilities | 1,136 | 0.2% |
| 99 | Unclassified | 673 | 0.1% |
| 21 | Mining | 255 | 0.0% |
Our 15 industries are built from these sectors and their subgroups; each industry page shows the figures for its own NAICS codes and the five counties with the most establishments: Professional and Business Services, Construction and Trades, Manufacturing, Real Estate and Property Management, Utilities and Waste Services, Hospitality, Restaurants and Tourism, Agriculture and Food, Transportation and Logistics, IT and Software, Architecture and Engineering, Healthcare and Wellness, Finance and Insurance, Local Government and Public Institutions, Automotive and Auto Repair, E-commerce and Online Retail.
County Business Patterns is an annual data series from the U.S. Census Bureau. Three points of its methodology matter when you read the table:
The 2023 figures are classified by the 2017 edition of NAICS. The employee figure refers to the week of March 12.
Three official figures describe “the number of businesses in Florida,” and they differ by a factor of almost eight:
None of them is wrong; they answer different questions. A business list drawn from state filings is closest to the first figure and has to be narrowed to operating businesses; that is the main task described in our data sources and methodology. The state registry itself has no county field for corporations: the county has to be derived from the principal address. How to read a state record is explained in How to search Florida business records on Sunbiz.
The table is a planning aid. It tells you where businesses are, so you can decide which counties are worth a campaign, how many sales territories a region supports, or whether a rural county justifies a visit at all. For the step from counts to names, see How to build a Florida B2B prospect list by industry and county.
The Florida Business Database delivers exports for 15 industries, each of which can be limited to any of the 67 counties. Per-county record counts of our own are still being compiled. Tell us the counties and industries you need, and we will reply with the number of records after filters, the as-of date and the price.
Miami-Dade County, with 98,394 business establishments with paid employees in 2023, followed by Broward (68,191), Palm Beach (55,803), Orange (45,588), Hillsborough (42,977). Together these five counties account for 48.2% of all establishments in the state (U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023).
It depends on what you count. The Census Bureau counted 645,575 establishments with paid employees in Florida in 2023, operated by roughly 523,095 firms (U.S. Census Bureau, Statistics of U.S. Businesses (SUSB) 2022). The state's Division of Corporations reported 4,129,182 active registered business entities as of July 8, 2026 – a much larger number, because it counts legal entities whether or not they have employees or operations, including companies without employees, holding entities and entities without operations.
An establishment is a single physical location at which business is conducted. A firm can have many establishments: a restaurant chain is one firm with many locations. A registered entity is a legal form on file with the state, whether or not it has a location, employees or any activity. Lists built from state records count entities; Census statistics count establishments and firms.
The state's record search finds entities by name, officer, registered agent, ZIP code or street address, one record at a time; it is not a county list. Our Florida Business Database offers exports filtered by county and industry; per-county counts of our own are still being compiled. You can send us the counties and industries you need.
Because County Business Patterns leaves out businesses without paid employees, farms, railroads, private households and government. Sources that count business licenses, registered entities or self-employed people arrive at much higher numbers for the same county.
They describe 2023, the most recent County Business Patterns year available when this page was last revised (October 11, 2026). Each year's figures are published well after the reference year.
