Where the Richest Business Owners in America Live: 2026 Study

Most people assume the country's wealthiest business owners are packed into a few expensive coastal cities. Federal tax data says otherwise. 

To find where owning a business pays off the most, Sam's List ranked all 387 U.S. metro areas by the average income of their business owners, drawn straight from IRS tax returns. 

Key findings:

• America's highest-earning business owners are in Naples, Florida. The Naples metro area's business owners report an average of $236,699 in business income, more than $42,000 ahead of second-place Sioux City and over two and a half times the typical metro.

• Small metros out-earn the biggest cities. Sioux City, IA ($194,454), Midland, TX ($188,085), and Charleston, SC ($172,055) fill out the top of the list, while New York ranks 79th, Los Angeles 63rd, and Chicago 86th.

• The typical metro sits far behind the leaders. The average business owner earns $95,719 nationally.

• The lowest-earning metros are in California's Central Valley. Hanford ranks last of all 387 at $31,086, followed by Visalia ($31,962) and Merced ($36,809).

The metros where business owners earn the most

The Naples metro area leads by a wide margin. Its business owners report an average of $236,699 in business income, more than $42,000 clear of any other metro. 

Sioux City, Midland, and Charleston follow, with Knoxville and Reno rounding out the top six. The pattern runs down the whole list: mid-size metros in the heartland and the Sun Belt out-earn the coastal giants. Boston (9th) and Houston (18th) are the only large metros near the top. San Francisco lands 43rd, while New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago all fall outside the top 60.

Rank	Metro	State	Avg. Business Income Per Owner
1	Naples	Florida	$236,699
2	Sioux City	Iowa	$194,454
3	Midland	Texas	$188,085
4	Charleston	South Carolina	$172,055
5	Knoxville	Tennessee	$171,642
6	Reno	Nevada	$167,492
7	Elkhart	Indiana	$164,499
8	Dalton	Georgia	$164,362
9	Boston	Massachusetts	$163,824
10	Birmingham	Alabama	$162,587

The most entrepreneurial metros

The ranking above measures how much business owners earn. A separate question is how many of them there are. Counting the share of tax returns that report business income shows where business ownership is most common.

Naples leads here too. Business income shows up on 15.5% of tax returns in the metro, the highest rate in the country, followed by Bozeman at 13.7% and St. George at 12.4%. Florida and Mountain West metros fill most of the list, with Miami and Boulder close behind. Naples is the only metro to top both the earnings and the ownership-rate rankings.

Rank	Metro	State	Share of Returns Reporting Business Income
1	Naples	Florida	15.5%
2	Bozeman	Montana	13.7%
3	Miami	Florida	12.4%
4	St. George	Utah	12.4%
5	Boulder	Colorado	11.4%
6	Sebastian	Florida	10.8%
7	Logan	Utah	10.7%
8	Provo	Utah	10.7%
9	North Port	Florida	10.4%
10	Cape Coral	Florida	9.9%

Where six-figure owners cluster

A high metro average doesn't always mean a metro is full of the wealthiest owners. To find where top earners concentrate, the study measured the share of business owners whose household income tops $200,000.

Silicon Valley and the Northeast lead here. In the San Jose metro area, 58.5% of business owners clear $200,000, the highest rate in the country, followed by Bridgeport at 57.9% and Midland at 57.5%. San Francisco and Boston are close behind, and Naples appears again at 49.6%.

Rank	Metro	State	Share of Owners Earning $200k+
1	San Jose	California	58.5%
2	Bridgeport	Connecticut	57.9%
3	Midland	Texas	57.5%
4	San Francisco	California	56.1%
5	Boston	Massachusetts	51.1%
6	Naples	Florida	49.6%
7	Trenton	New Jersey	48.9%
8	Austin	Texas	48.8%
9	Napa	California	48.3%
10	Washington	District of Columbia	48.0%

Full ranking: all 387 metro areas

The complete, sortable ranking covers every U.S. metro area with available data, showing each metro's average business income per owner, share of returns reporting business income, and share of owners earning $200,000 or more.

Methodology

Sam's List analyzed IRS Statistics of Income county-level data for tax year 2022, the latest available. A business owner is defined as a tax return reporting income from an S corporation or partnership, the pass-through profit that flows to the owner's return. For each county, total S-corp and partnership income was divided by the number of owners reporting it to give an average per owner, and counties were grouped into metro areas using the U.S. Census Bureau crosswalk. All 387 metros with available data were ranked.

Sole proprietors (Schedule C) are excluded because that group is dominated by gig and side income, more than 60 million filers nationally averaging under $14,000, rather than the business owners this study measures. C corporations are also excluded, since their profits appear on a separate corporate return, not the owner's. Figures are based on the filing address on the return, not the business location, and are net of losses.