Florida gets a reality check with new business-friendly rankings

Even as multi-millionaires and billionaires move to Florida, the state is getting a wake-up call over its overall business environment.

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The Sunshine State fell five spots in a closely watched ranking of the most business-friendly states in the country, reflecting a high cost of living and worsening infrastructure. In past years, the state’s political leaders touted the survey.

But this year, Florida placed eighth overall in the cable business network CNBC’s annual America’s Top States for Business. The state ranked third last year.

The new survey comes as the wealthy continue to buy real estate in South Florida. Google’s founders and Starbucks’ former CEO have bought homes in the Miami area in the past six months.

CNBC’s study ranks all 50 states across 10 categories of business competitiveness.

In the new rankings, published in July, Florida worsened in infrastructure, health of the economy, quality of life and business friendliness. It dropped slightly in access to capital, from third to fourth.

“Florida saw a decline in its Infrastructure ranking in part because of decline in the reliability of its power grid, but also because of a metric we added this year on permit approval times,” CNBC special correspondent Scott Cohn told the Miami Herald in an email.

“Florida also fell in the Economy category, largely due to a softening housing market,” he said. “Florida remains one of the most expensive states to live in, though business costs are improving.”

Ohio was this year’s winner, for the first time. CNBC praised the rust belt state’s new infrastructure “at a time when infrastructure matters more than ever.” The network was referring in part to the growth of data centers, needed to support the AI boom.

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Ohio “also offers the lowest Cost of Doing Business, supported by some of the nation’s most affordable rents and insurance costs,” the network said.

North Carolina was ranked second, Virginia third, Texas fourth, and Minnesota fifth. Michigan and Georgia followed.

The results also showed that despite a divided country, politics alone don’t determine the top states to do business. Three of the seven states ahead of Florida in the new rankings have been led by Democratic governors over the past two years, and a fourth elected one in 2025. That includes Tim Walz, the former vice presidential nominee.

Even with the drop, Florida remained in the Top 10. The state also improved in two categories in this year’s rankings: the cost of doing business and technology and innovation, where it climbed to 10th from 12th. That’s a positive development for the state given South Florida’s years long effort to become a global tech hub.

Two other strengths the state showed in the report were access to capital where it ranked fourth, and workforce preparation where it ranked second. The prep ranking is significant because for years Florida has faced a perception that it lacks sufficient employable talent for tech or finance companies moving to the area. And institutions like Miami Dade College have made big strides to address that gap.

Florida’s “numbers are formidable,” CNBC wrote, noting the state turned out more than 175,000 associate’s degree and certificate holders, the third highest in the nation.

“And the state’s workforce training program is getting excellent results, with nearly 85% of participants employed within six months.”

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