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: 5.75%
Top corporate income tax rate: 6%
Property tax: 2.96%
Energy
Electric Utilities Costs †: 0.77
Labor
Minimum wage: $5.85
† Index of state's average revenue/kilowatt hour.
9. Virginia
"Virginia is a terrific state to do business," says Karen Kerrigan of the SBE Council. "The state's geographical proximity to the federal government, its highly educated and high-income households, and its great policy climate play major roles in this." But one major challenge for Virginia, Kerrigan points out, is transportation infrastructure, which will have to be developed to keep pace with the state's growth. This is particularly true of suburban Northern Virginia, where numerous tech companies are based.
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.