Best Cities to Start a Business in Washington

Don’t be surprised that Washington is the home of some of the nation’s most respected and successful companies, including Microsoft, Amazon, and Starbucks, as the state has always offered an excellent environment for the growth and development of new business.

For starters, Washington’s tax system is very forgiving. The state does not levy a personal income tax, corporate tax, or franchise tax; one of few states where this is the case. Washington’s low tax burden is a serious boon to businesses in the early stages of development when high levies can sink a company into a pool of debt.

Another positive for the budding entrepreneur is access to a wide pool of highly skilled and educated potential employees coming out of the University of Washington and Washington State. In fact, Washington ranks 4th in the U.S. in the percentage of available employees.

The state’s cultural ethos is also conducive to out-of-the-box thinking. Seattle and college towns like Olympia and Spokane have long been hotbeds of new ideas and innovation where old methods and business models are continually challenged.

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.