Home Economy Economic Activity R.I. drops to No. 46 on CNBC’s 2025 ranking of top states...

R.I. drops to No. 46 on CNBC’s 2025 ranking of top states for business

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PBN Staff

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07/10/2025

a0UkplYn-AvnS53oZ-Statehouse-1-1 — RHODE ISLAND ranked 46th among all states in CNBC’s “America’s Top States for Business 2025″ rankings released Thursday, dropping two spots from last year’s ranking. / PBN FILE PHOTO/ARTISTIC IMAGES

PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island ranked 46th among all states in CNBC’s “America’s Top States for Business 2025″ rankings released Thursday, dropping two spots from last year’s ranking. The Ocean State was again lowest among New England states. Rhode Island ranked 44th in CNBC’s 2024 list and was No. 45 in 2022 and 2023. The

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PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island ranked 46th among all states in CNBC’s “America’s Top States for Business 2025″ rankings released Thursday, dropping two spots from last year’s ranking. The Ocean State was again lowest among New England states. Rhode Island ranked 44th in CNBC’s 2024 list and was No. 45 in 2022 and 2023. The last time Rhode Island was ranked 46th was in 2021. The CNBC study is not an opinion survey but based on empirical data on the states’ performance in various metrics using the most recent figures available. For the 2025 report, states were evaluated on 86 metrics in 10 categories: infrastructure, workforce, economy, quality of life, cost of doing business, technology and innovation, business friendliness, education, access to capital and cost of living. CNBC also ranked states in those 10 individual categories and gave a letter grade. Rhode Island did best in quality of life, ranking 13th (B-), up from 15th in 2024. The state ranked 21st for workforce (C), also an improvement from 22nd a year earlier. In other categories, Rhode Island ranked (with letter grade):

46th for the cost of doing business (D), same as last year.
46th for business friendliness (D), down from 45th in 2024.
45th for economy (D-), down from 42nd in 2024.
39th for infrastructure (D+), down from 32nd in 2024.
37th for access to capital (D-), up from 39th in 2024.
36th for cost of living (D+), up from 42nd in 2024.
33rd for technology and innovation (D), down from 23rd in 2024.
33rd for education (C), up from 43rd in 2024.

New England states generally fared poorly in the rankings, with none cracking the top 10 for 2025. Massachusetts ranked the highest of all states in the region at No. 20, Connecticut at 28, New Hampshire at 36, Vermont at 38 and Maine at 43. North Carolina ranked No. 1 overall this year, followed by Texas, Florida, Georgia, Virginia, Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, Tennessee, Indiana and Minnesota. Only Montana, Hawaii and Alaska finished behind Rhode Island in the rankings. Louisiana was tied with Rhode Island at 46th.