CNBC again ranks North Carolina as Top State for Business in 2025

For the third time in four years, CNBC has ranked North Carolina as “America’s Top State for Business” in 2025.

“The Tar Heel State is on a roll,” writes CNBC special correspondent Scott Cohn, who created the business news network’s annual competitiveness study of states in 2007. “It captured top honors in the annual CNBC rankings in 2022 and 2023, and it was runner-up in 2021 and 2024 — missing the top spot last year by just three points to Virginia, which slips this year to its lowest position among states since 2018.”

Cohn recognized North Carolina’s top ranking during a live broadcast on July 10 with Gov. Josh Stein from the deck of the USS North Carolina, the battleship which is now a museum permanently docked in Wilmington.

“We are open for business,” Stein said. “Since January 1, we’ve announced more than $20 billion of investment producing more than 23,000 jobs. We’re the third fastest growing state in the country. And we have a solid growing economy. It’s all about our people." 

“If you are a biotech or pharma company or aerospace company, you can come here and we have the engineers and scientists to help design your product, but we also have the talented advanced manufacturing workforce you need to produce it.”

According to CNBC’s data, “North Carolina finishes No. 3 in the all-important Economy category of this year’s study, behind only Florida and Texas. The state’s gross domestic product grew by a healthy 3.7% last year, the fifth-strongest in the country. The state added more than 60,000 jobs last year.”

Cohn reported that those jobs add to a well-rounded workforce, ranking fourth-best, according to the CNBC study. 

The report found that Census data puts North Carolina third, behind only Florida and Maine, in net in-migration of college-educated workers by percent. North Carolina also finishes in the top tier both for science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM employees, and for its pipeline of vocational and career-educated workers, Cohn reported.

CNBC’s top five states for business, in order, were North Carolina, Texas, Florida, Virginia and Ohio. For the full rankings, click here.

North Carolina has also received several other honors recently, particularly on the life sciences front. 

Business Facilities, a source of news and trends for site-selection decision-makers, recognized the Accelerate NC Coalition with a 2025 Economic Development Organization award. The Accelerate NC Coalition is a statewide partnership dedicated to strengthening North Carolina’s life sciences manufacturing workforce. It is led by the North Carolina Biotechnology Center with involvement by about 30 industrial, academic and economic development partners. 

In March, the North Carolina Biotechnology Center was named to Fast Company’s prestigious list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies of 2025. The annual list shines a spotlight on businesses that are shaping industry and culture through their innovations to set new standards and achieve remarkable milestones in all sectors of the economy, according to the magazine. NCBiotech was among 10 companies in the Economic Development company category, and the magazine highlighted NCBiotech’s Accelerate NC Coalition as one of the big reasons for the honor.