A great deal has been made about the relocation of millions of Americans since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many people moved because they could work from home. Others moved because they wanted to live in less expensive cities compared to those they left. Still others moved for lifestyle reasons. Less well understood is the movement of entire companies. These movements showed that certain states were the target of corporation migration. None benefited more than Florida. (These are the best states for science and technology.)
Florida has been a popular place for individual relocation. This has been particularly true for the Miami and Tampa metros. One effect is that housing prices in these cities have soared, according to the S&P Case-Shiller home price index. This, in turn, has made living in those cities more expensive than two years ago.
Hire A Helper’s “2023 Study: Corporate Relocation at Highest Rate Since 2017” report showed that about 9% of American companies have changed their headquarters locations since the start of 2022. About one-fifth of relocations were within the same city. About a third moved to another city within the state where they were previously located.
Financial Statement Data Sets, which are published by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, were the source of most of the data for the study. The yardstick used was a change based on the term “business address.”
The study’s primary conclusion about state relocations was that “Florida had 86% more corporations move their HQ there, compared to the number of companies that chose to move their head office out of Florida — the highest net gain of any state.”
Florida’s net migration of business migrations was followed by Texas at plus 71%, Arizona at 65% and Utah at 57%. These figures are close to those of individual migration.
These are the 10 states with the most net migration of business headquarters:
- Florida (85.7%)
- Texas (70.6%)
- Arizona (65.0%)
- Utah (57.1%)
- Louisiana (50.0%)
- Pennsylvania (50.0%)
- Wisconsin (50.0%)
- Wyoming (50.0%)
- North Carolina (42.9%)
- Virginia (42.9%)
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