Only one state can be No. 1, but many states deserve recognition for their performance across important categories of the CNBC annual rankings.

CNBC has released its annual rankings of the top states for business, with North Carolina earning the highest overall score for 2025. The rankings are determined by points accumulated across ten categories of competitiveness, including economy, quality of life, infrastructure, and workforce.

While North Carolina led overall, other states excelled in individual categories: Florida was recognized for its strong economy, Ohio for infrastructure, Texas for workforce, and Vermont for quality of life. California topped the list for technology and innovation, while Virginia was noted for education. The rankings highlight the diverse strengths of states across the United States.

2025 Top States for Business Honor Roll

North Carolina may be this year's top state for business according to CNBC's annual rankings. But it's far from the only one to achieve high marks in categories like the economy quality of life infrastructure and more. Scott Cohn is here with this year's top states on a roll. Scott what do you got. That is right Courtney. So as the way that our study works is it's based on points through the 10 categories of competitiveness. North Carolina had the most points overall but it did not win any one category. These are the states that did our top states on a roll for economy. Our top weighted category this year it's Florida strong growth healthy state finances for infrastructure. Courtney it's Ohio with access to more people in a day's drive than any other state. Texas has the top workforce lowest cost of doing business. Oklahoma with low wage and utility costs. North Carolina is business. North Dakota I should say is business friendly is especially its legal climate. Vermont tops for quality of life. California first for technology and innovation in education. It's Virginia. California offers the best access to capital and you'll find the lowest cost of living in West Virginia. The other part of our top states on a roll is all the great people that work on this every year from our great technical team on the ground here in Wilmington our digital team CNBC dot com and Englewood Cliffs and our amazing top states producers this year. Noah Broto Casey O'Brien. We thank everybody. Check out what everyone has done at top states dot CNBC dot com. That's top states for twenty twenty five.

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