10 Best states for starting a business

Attention libertarians! Find out where the cold, dead hand of the state weighs lightest. Rankings provided by the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council.

Taxes
Top personal income tax rate: 0%
Top corporate income tax rate: 0%
Property tax: 4.69%
Energy
Electric Utilities Costs †: 0.56
Labor
Minimum wage: $5.85
† Index of state's average revenue/kilowatt hour.
3. Wyoming
Energy is cheap in Wyoming. Electric utility costs and gas taxes are among the lowest in the country. Although property and consumption-based taxes are fairly high, Wyoming business owners pay no personal income, capital gains, corporate income or corporate capital gains tax. "The state has a great support system for business," says Kerrigan. "Wyoming offers a great quality of life and a good workforce -- and there's lots of space."
South Dakota Nevada Wyoming Washington Florida Michigan Texas South Carolina Virginia Alabama
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In exclusive rankings for FSB.com from the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council, we looked for places low on taxes and light on government regulations. These places aren't. (more)

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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.