Half of U.S. Business Owners See Local Area as Good for Business

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Less than half of U.S. business owners (48%) express satisfaction with their city or local area as a place to run their business. Five percent of U.S. business owners say they are likely to leave their current area for a business-related reason, but that share more than doubles when the owner is dissatisfied with the business climate in their city or local area.

These findings are the latest from Gallup’s Pathways to Wealth project, supported by JPMorganChase and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. Across three years of surveys, the research explores the factors that drive wellbeing and wealth among business owners.

The Year 3 survey, conducted Sept. 26-Nov. 3, 2025, with business owners recruited primarily from the probability-based Gallup Panel, examines how different forms of work and business ownership relate to people’s income, wealth and wellbeing. This article focuses on one module of the research that explored how owners feel about their local business climate and how it relates to their likelihood of moving the business for a business-related reason.

Business Owners’ Ratings of the Ecosystem

Gallup asked owners to rate their level of agreement or disagreement with 11 statements about doing business in their city or local market (see full item wordings below). Real estate costs are rated the most negatively, with 42% of owners agreeing or strongly agreeing that commercial and residential real estate costs deter business development. Only 14% disagree that these costs deter business development, with the rest giving a neutral response. State and local tax rates are also rated negatively, with 35% of owners agreeing these taxes are too high to support business growth and 18% disagreeing.

The most positively rated local characteristics include access to customers, with 43% agreeing that their area provides good access to customers and markets.

Thirty-four percent of business owners agree that their local area provides helpful business-to-business support services, while 14% disagree. Three in 10 business owners (31%) also say their area offers good access to professional service suppliers.

Overall, nearly half of business owners (48%) hold a positive view of their local area as a place to run a business, while 13% express a negative overall view. The rest (39%) are neutral about their area.

To understand the drivers of local satisfaction, Gallup calculated the association between overall satisfaction and each of the remaining 10 characteristics. This analysis shows that real estate costs and tax rates are the least predictive items on the list when it comes to overall sentiment about the area and are not significant in explaining overall sentiment. Access to customers, business-to-business support networks (like the Chamber of Commerce), nonprofit support services, regulations, and the quality of government services are the most closely associated with overall sentiment.

When Owners Pursue Opportunities Elsewhere

Gallup analyzed business owners’ views of the 11 conditions alongside their self-reported likelihood of leaving their city or local area over the next 12 months for a business-related reason. Overall, just 5% of business owners indicate that they are likely to leave, but this varies considerably by owners’ views about the local climate and business performance.

Business owners who have a negative overall view of the local business climate are more than twice as likely as those who do not to express intentions to leave, by a six-percentage-point margin (11% vs. 5%, respectively).

In the 2025 survey, intentions to leave the area for business reasons were much higher among owners who were both dissatisfied with the local business climate and anticipating annual revenue growth by the close of the year. When asked to compare actual revenue for 2024 to expected revenue by the end of 2025, 19% of owners who indicated growth expectations and were dissatisfied with the local area as a place to run their business said they were likely to relocate. This compares to just 5% of owners who expected growth but were satisfied with or neutral about their local area, as well as 9% of owners who didn’t expect growth and were dissatisfied.

Implications

Local businesses are an important source of tax revenue, employment and economic stability to cities and towns around the country. Many Americans work for small businesses, and they provide not only jobs but also sales taxes, income taxes, and valued goods and services to their communities.

Fortunately, most owners are either satisfied with their community or express neutral feelings about it as a place to conduct business. Few of these owners appear likely to pack up their business for what they believe to be a more favorable location. Yet, among owners with an unfavorable view of their local area’s business climate, over one in 10 are likely to leave for a business-related reason, as are nearly one in five among growing businesses. This suggests that a modest share of successful small businesses could be at risk in communities with the least satisfied owners, who may believe the success of their business is endangered by local policies or aspects of the business climate.

While real estate prices and taxes garner the least positive assessments from owners, they do little to explain the variation in overall satisfaction with the local climate. Instead, factors like access to customers, local business-to-business support networks, and business-friendly regulations may matter more in attracting and retaining owners. These relationships are merely associations in the data and could be caused by factors not measured in the survey. In any case, local governments interested in attracting and retaining successful small businesses would do well to monitor their concerns.

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Acknowledgments

This report was funded with the support of JPMorganChase and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. The views expressed are those of the author and should not be attributed to JPMorganChase or Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.