Los Angeles County and Sheridan County, Wyoming, don’t share many similarities, except for one main area: a high volume of business applications.
That’s one of several findings from the US Census Bureau’s most recent business application data release in June. The data track applications for Employer Identification Numbers (EINs) submitted to the Internal Revenue Service.
Business Insider sorted the data by which US counties saw the most EIN applications and calculated the percent change compared to 2024 data, while also cross-referencing with the agency’s 2025 county population dataset to determine the rate of applications per 1,000 residents. These applications did not necessarily result in a business being formed.
Overall, the US saw a roughly 8% increase in business applications in 2025, rising to 5.6 million from 5.2 million in 2024. That could be loosely tied to an economic shift during President Donald Trump’s first year of his non-consecutive second term, including a weaker labor market that may have pushed some laid-off or out-of-work Americans toward entrepreneurship.
The boom in artificial intelligence, too, has torn down some obstacles that previously barred entrepreneurs from starting and running a business, ushering in an AI startup golden age.
While most of the top counties include large metropolitan areas like Philadelphia and Miami, a small county called Sheridan in the US’ least-populated state, Wyoming, ranked 16th, with 47,787 business applications in 2025; its population is just 33,241 residents. That’s more than half of the state’s 79,024 applications overall.
George Mocsary, a professor and corporate and small-business law expert at the University of Wyoming, told Business Insider that Wyoming is attractive to entrepreneurs because it has an industry built around simple, low-cost business formation services, particularly for small LLCs, including registered agents that provide designated addresses for receiving official notices.
When applying for an EIN, he said businesses can use an address associated with their registered agent, in this case, Sheridan, making it appear as though tens of thousands of businesses are opening in the small Wyoming county when they may actually operate elsewhere.
“You’ve got an entire industry in the state, and in Sheridan in particular, that’s set up to let you [start a company],” Moscary said.
Here are the 25 US counties with the most business applications in 2025.
25. Philadelphia County, PA
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24. Queens County, NY
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23. Sacramento County, CA
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22. Pinellas County, FL
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21. Wayne County, MI
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20. Tarrant County, TX
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19. Hillsborough County, FL
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18. San Diego County, CA
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17. King County, WA
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16. Sheridan County, WY
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15. Palm Beach County, FL
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14. Kings County, NY
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13. Travis County, TX
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12. Orange County, FL
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11. Fulton County, GA
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10. Orange County, CA
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9. Clark County, NV
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8. New York County, NY
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7. Dallas County, TX
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6. Broward County, FL
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5. Maricopa County, AZ
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4. Cook County, IL
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3. Harris County, TX
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2. Miami-Dade County, FL
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1. Los Angeles County, CA
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