Rank: 51
Index score: 75.42

Washington, D.C., rates lowest on this year's list, due to high personal and corporate income, sales and capital gains taxes, as well as a high minimum wage and crime rate. Nevertheless, the city is undergoing "a renaissance of sorts," says Karen Kerrigan, CEO and president of the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council, a nonprofit group in Washington, D.C. More business-development efforts and private-public partnerships are taking place, more people are moving into the city, and the environment for startups has eased, "though once in, the burdens are still pretty heavy," she says.