Entrepreneurs in Arizona submitted 121,520 new business applications in 2024, working out to 14 per hour on average.

That’s according to a new study from Switch On Businesses who analyzed U.S. Census data to find the rate of new business applications per hour in each state.

MORE NEWS: Arizona economy keeps rolling: Here are the numbers

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Here’s how Arizona entrepreneurs compare to the rest of the U.S.:

If America’s entrepreneurs are still testing their footing on the changeable ground of the new political landscape, they are at least setting out from a position of high ambition. The last four years saw a record 21 million new businesses launched in America, at a rate more than 90% faster than pre-pandemic levels. During this period, the Small Business Administration (SBA) paid over $450 billion in loans and grants to small businesses. In 2023 alone, some 1.8 million of the 5.5 million new businesses launched with plans to hire workers.

Still, the promise of changes like the end of the penny, the shrinking of the government’s administrative force, the tariff war and the developing power of AI are all somewhat ambiguous. Nobody’s sure if these changes will affect businesses for better or worse, but just 54% of small business owners reckon the economy will improve in 2025.

So where is optimism strongest? To find out, Switch On Business identified the states and counties with the highest rates of new business applications in 2024 and those where the rate has increased the fastest since 2022.

Key Findings

● Florida received 72 new business applications per hour in 2024 — the most of any state.
● However, Wyoming received 10,133 new business applications per 100,000 residents across the year, which is the highest rate per capita.
● West Virginia received just 855 new business applications per 100,000 residents in 2024, the lowest rate of any state.
● The county with the fastest growth in new business applications is Natrona County, Wyoming, where the number of applications rose by 124.3% from 2023-24.