TAMPA, Fla. — Tampa was ranked as the second-best place to start a business in a new report.
The personal finance company used three key dimensions to determine its rankings: business environment, access to resources and business costs.
WalletHub, a personal finance company, published the study citing a low corporate tax rate and a high number of investors per capita that gives businesses more resources to survive the difficult initial years in Tampa.
What does this mean?
In Tampa, the low corporate tax rate allows businesses to keep more of their revenue. The rate depends on when the business was started but it is 5.5% for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2022, according to the Florida Department of Revenue.
Compared to other states in the country, that’s low. Minnesota has the highest with a rate of 9.8% one of the highest rates at 9.8%, according to the Tax Foundation.
Many companies are not subjected to the corporate income tax because they are taxed as pass-through businesses with income reportable under the individual income tax. Florida is a state that does not have an individual income tax, so businesses in the state don’t have to pay business income taxes.
Several Florida cities ranked within the top 10 with Orlando being No. 1. Here’s the top 10:
Best cities to start a business
- Orlando, FL
- Tampa, FL
- Charlotte, NC
- Jacksonville, FL
- Miami, FL
- Atlanta, GA
- Fort Worth, TX
- Austin, TX
- Durham, NC
- St. Petersburg, FL
How was the list made?
WalletHub compares 100 cities using data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, National Venture Capital Association and many other sources.
Researchers evaluated the dimensions of business environment, access to resources and costs with different metrics. Under business environment, they compare factors like length of work week, startups per capita and industry variety. Under access to resources, there were factors like human capital availability, higher education assets and working-age population growth. Business costs included corporate taxes, cost of living, office space affordability and labor costs.
Each factor was weighted with a certain amount of points with the highest possible score being 100. Tampa scored 62.73 while Orlando scored 68.22.
Tampa ranked fourth for its business environment score, 39 for access to resources and 26 for business costs rank.