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Virginia holds strong in CNBC’s top 5 states for business
July 18, 2025
Virginia is for *business* lovers, remaining that way for another year.
CNBC announced the annual America’s Top States for Business rankings, with Virginia landing in fourth place.
CNBC traditionally uses a point-based scoring system – totaling 2,500 points – across 10 weighted categories: workforce, infrastructure, economy, cost of doing business, quality of life, education, technology and innovation, business friendliness, access to capital and cost of living. Each state is evaluated on how frequently they market their economic development.
For the past six years, Virginia has been consistently ranked in first place as America’s Top States for Business. This year, the state retained its first place ranking for education, including rising to second place in infrastructure. Virginia also is ranked seventh place for business friendliness, as well as eighth place in both quality of life, technology and innovation.
“Results matter and Virginia is stronger economically and financially than she has ever been,” said Gov. Glenn Youngkin about the CNBC business ranking last week.
In addition, Virginia has a 3.4 percent unemployment rate, which is below the national average. One of the contributing factors to such a low percentage rate is a diverse job market, strong labor force participation and consistent expansion of businesses – specifically in informational services, manufacturing and construction – that help lower unemployment rates.
“With the support of the Governor’s Administration and General Assembly, Virginia is leading on the fundamentals by securing record-setting business investment, proactively investing in shovel-ready sites, and excelling in workforce training,” said Virginia Economic Development Partnership CEO Jason El Koubi.
The metrics were gathered using several data sources such as the U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
