🔒CT rises 4 spots to 28th in CNBC’s 2025 Top States for Business report

Connecticut improved four spots in the latest ranking of the top states for business by financial news network CNBC. The Nutmeg state was ranked 28th out of the 50 states in the 2025 rankings, up four spots from 32nd in the 2024 report. It’s the highest the state has ranked since 2021, when it was ranked 24th, but represents a nine-spot improvement from its ranking of 39th three years ago. The latest ranking was a result of Connecticut improving in six of the 10 categories, while declining in four. The state ranked in the top five in two categories, jumping from ninth to fifth in the Quality of Life category but falling one spot from fourth in the Education category. Connecticut also ranked in the top 10 in the Workforce category, surging up to eighth in 2025 from 20th last year. It also improved significantly in the Technology & Innovation (19th) and Access to Capital (16th) categories, rising six spots from a year earlier. The state also improved in the Business Friendliness category, rising four spots from last year to 35th, and the Economy category, up one spot from last year to 38th. Overall, North Carolina topped the rankings this year, up from second in 2024. It was followed by Texas, Florida, Virginia and Ohio in the top 5. Alaska ranked last in the list, ahead of Hawaii, Montana, Rhode Island and Louisiana. Massachusetts was the highest-ranked state in the Northeast, coming in at 20th, ahead of New York at 23rd. To rank the nation’s Top States for Business in 2025, CNBC said it scored all 50 states on 135 metrics in 10 broad categories of competitiveness. “The fundamentals of the study, now in its 19th year, are the same as they have always been, identifying the factors companies consider year after year when making site selection decisions, and that states pitch in their efforts to woo business,” CNBC said. “Each category is weighted based on how frequently states use them as a selling point in economic development marketing materials, with Economy No. 1 this year.” The business news network noted that, for 2025, it added metrics to “gauge the states’ risks from a trade war and a shrinking federal budget.” It also enhanced some of its infrastructure metrics to determine how the states are delivering on companies’ power and data demands.