Best Cities to Start a Business in North Dakota

North Dakota is an excellent destination for the budding entrepreneur, with a host of factors contributing to its position as one of the most business-friendly states in the nation.

Once primarily an agricultural economy, North Dakota’s oil industry has boomed in the past decade, creating thousands of jobs and driving up the state’s economic growth rate and GDP to previously unforeseen levels. From 2009 to 2013, the state led the country in job creation and has ranked highly ever since.

For those looking to start a business, rapidly expanding urban areas and a higher-than-average median income are favorable characteristics. What’s more, North Dakota ranked 4th in 2016 for the opportunity share of entrepreneurs, indicating that opening a business in the state presents a relatively low risk.

The financial burden on new businesses won’t be high either, as the state ranks in the upper half of states in both costs of living and tax climates for small businesses.

Only cities with over 50,000 inhabitants are reported in the results. Some data had to be interpolated to the county level and extrapolated to all the cities in the county. We concentrated on the following metrics to obtain our ranking: Cost of living, Best state for business, Unemployment, Kauffman index, and Universities.