North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein signs a bill into law at the governor's mansion on June 13, 2025. (Photo: Galen Bacharier/NC Newsline)
After losing the Number One ranking to Virginia in 2024, North Carolina has reclaimed bragging rights as the Top State for Business in 2025 according to CNBC.
“Our people, state’s business climate, top research universities and excellent community college system, infrastructure, and high quality of life help both companies and workers thrive,” said Gov. Josh Stein on Thursday.
Stein praised state legislators of both parties as well as former Governor Roy Cooper in helping North Carolina create a welcoming business climate.
The high ranking from CNBC is nothing new for the state. Since 2007, North Carolina has enjoyed an average ranking of 4.5 in the survey under governors and legislatures led by both major parties. Its lowest ranking was 12th in 2013. It’s been ranked first, second or third since 2019, though no survey was published during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
CNBC’s annual ranking measures states across 10 categories of competitiveness. The categories where North Carolina demonstrated its biggest strengths this year were the economy, its workforce, and the state’s business friendliness. In a state of more than 11 million people, the unemployment rate stands at 3.7%.
The categories in which North Carolina received its lowest marks were quality of life (earning a C-) and cost of living (earning a C+) in the 2025 ranking.
“Our strength lies in our ability to connect companies with the workforce, infrastructure, sites, industry ecosystems, and innovation resources needed to support their growth, as well as a business-friendly environment that’s especially valuable in times of economic uncertainty,” said Christopher Chung, CEO of the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina.
Since January, state commerce officials have announced business expansions or new projects yielding nearly $17 billion of new capital investment with an expectation of adding more than 20,000 new jobs. Last month, JetZero announced it would bring a $4.7 billion investment to Greensboro for its new production facility creating more than 14500 jobs by 2063. The announcement marked the largest economic development project in North Carolina history based on the job commitment.
Promoting the state, the promise of recovery
CNBC announced North Carolina’s Number One ranking Thursday in a televised interview with Gov. Stein in Wilmington on the USS North Carolina Battleship.
Stein used his time in the national spotlight to lift up western North Carolina and the tourism industry as it continues to recover from Hurricane Helene.
“We have a [new] ad campaign, which is ‘Rediscover the Unforgettable.’ People need to come to western North Carolina. If you’ve been here, you know what I’m talking about. And if you haven’t, you’ll be thrilled that you did,” said Stein in effort to promote a part of the state that sustained $60 billion in damages nine months ago.
Stein visited the Town of Clyde earlier this week to award one of the first grants from the Small Business Infrastructure Grant Program, which is helping local governments rebuild public infrastructure.
Helene left Clyde’s downtown six-to-eight feet underwater. This week told a much brighter story.
“I could not tell that from any storefront I walked in. Everyone was fresher than it has ever been,” Stein said in touting the speed at which some businesses have been able to reopen.
Gov. Stein recently signed the latest Helene recovery bill, directing nearly $300 million to the NCDOT to be used for recovery in impacted areas. (Photo: NCDOT)But Stein made clear in his CNBC interview that help from the federal government was still very much needed, even as the Trump administration has questioned whether FEMA should continue to provide states help.
“North Carolina is a bigger state than most. So, we have a pretty sophisticated emergency response team. But here’s the thing, we don’t get a huge storm every year. The country does,” reasoned Stein. “It doesn’t make sense for each state to have a fully staffed emergency response team because they may not have a storm for five-years or 10 years. But we know the country will.”
Stein reiterated that the state cannot bear the full cost of recovery, only the federal government can do that.
There’s currently an $11.5 billion request for storm recovery before Congress and the Trump administration.
“I eagerly hope they fund [it] soon,” said the governor.
New storm clouds on the horizon
Beyond natural disasters, Stein expressed concern that Trump’s one big, beautiful bill could mean billions of dollars in lost revenue for state’s Medicaid program.
“This bill is going to result in real harm to North Carolina, harm to our people, harm to our health care system,” said Stein.
A recent report by the General Assembly’s Fiscal Research Division highlights a $32 billion loss to the state budget and hospitals over the next decade.
Stein said the federal changes would result in hundreds of thousands of people potentially losing their health care coverage with rural hospitals feeling financial strain.
North Carolina House Speaker Destin Hall (R-Caldwell), left, and Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger (R-Rockingham) speak ahead of Gov. Josh Stein’s State of the State address on March 12, 2025. (Photo: Galen Bacharier/NC Newsline)“Obviously we need to work with our North Carolina legislature to make sure that we don’t abandon the bipartisan win we had together,” said Stein.
Both House Speaker Destin Hall and Senate President Phil Berger praised the new CNBC business ranking on social media posts Thursday. Neither, however, mentioned the challenges Stein outlined, or news of any progress toward a final state budget, ten days into the new fiscal year.
Lawmakers return to Raleigh the week of July 28th, at which time they are expected to take up override votes on the latest bills that Stein has vetoed.
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