Manufacturing Establishments by State: 2026 Census-Based Rankings

Executive Summary

The manufacturing footprint in the United States is broad, but it is not evenly spread. California ranks first with 35,300 manufacturing establishments, Texas ranks second with 21,034 manufacturing establishments, and Florida ranks third with 14,341 manufacturing establishments. Those three states alone account for 70,675 manufacturing establishments, which is more than many regional clusters combined.

Establishment count is only one lens. Ohio has 13,307 establishments and 689,133 manufacturing employees, so its average site is larger than the average site in California. Indiana has 7,938 establishments, but those sites support 524,995 employees, producing one of the largest average employees-per-establishment figures in the country. Mississippi has only 1,981 establishments, yet it records 73.8 employees per establishment, the highest average plant size in this dataset.

Payroll also changes the map. California's manufacturing payroll is $106.2B, Texas reports $67.3B, and Ohio reports $47.8B. Washington and Massachusetts have fewer establishments than the largest industrial states, but both exceed $89,000 in payroll per employee. Those figures are useful for site selectors, economic development teams, suppliers, recruiters, and B2B marketers who need to understand where manufacturing demand is concentrated.

What Counts as a Manufacturing Establishment?

The Census Bureau's County Business Patterns program publishes annual statistics for business establishments with paid employees under its CBP methodology. An establishment is a single physical location where business is conducted or services or industrial operations are performed. If one company runs multiple plants in one state, CBP can count multiple establishments. If a company has no paid employees, it is not part of this employer-establishment dataset.

The manufacturing sector is NAICS 31-33. Census describes this sector as the transformation of materials, substances, or components into new products in the NAICS 31-33 definition. That includes food manufacturing, fabricated metal, plastics and rubber, machinery, transportation equipment, chemicals, computers and electronics, wood products, printing, and other production categories. The state table below uses the CBP `31----` aggregate row for total manufacturing and the legal form `-` row for all legal forms.

CBP is especially useful for state-by-state comparisons because it puts establishments, employees, and payroll into a single consistent source. BLS QCEW is another core labor-market source for establishment and employment data through the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, while the Census Annual Survey of Manufactures provides deeper survey detail on shipments, materials, capital expenditures, and inventories through the ASM program. For this resource, CBP is the anchor because the question is where manufacturing establishments are located.

Top States by Manufacturing Establishments

The five largest states by establishment count are California with 35,300, Texas with 21,034, Florida with 14,341, New York with 13,837, and Ohio with 13,307. That top-five group accounts for 97,819 manufacturing establishments, or about 34.4% of the state/DC total in this table.

California's lead is not surprising. It has a very large population base, major ports, deep aerospace and electronics clusters, food and beverage production, medical device manufacturing, and a dense network of small and midsize suppliers. The useful detail is the average site size: California records 32.8 employees per manufacturing establishment, far below Indiana's 66.1, Kentucky's 70.1, and Mississippi's 73.8. In practical terms, California is a high-count manufacturing market with many smaller shops, while several interior states skew toward larger plants.

Texas is second by establishment count and second by employment, with 21,034 establishments and 869,062 manufacturing employees. Its average site size of 41.3 employees per establishment is close to Pennsylvania's 42.7 and Illinois's 43.7. Texas also posts $67.3B in manufacturing payroll, giving it a payroll base that is large enough to matter for staffing firms, safety vendors, ERP providers, energy providers, industrial distributors, and lead generation campaigns targeting plant operations.

Florida's third-place rank is more nuanced. The state has 14,341 establishments but 358,707 employees, giving it 25.0 employees per establishment. That profile suggests a large number of smaller shops, contractors, food producers, marine suppliers, aerospace suppliers, packaging companies, and specialty manufacturers. For marketers, Florida may produce more account targets than its employment rank alone would suggest.

Large-Plant States: Where the Average Establishment Is Bigger

Establishment count can overstate a market if most sites are small. Average employees per establishment helps separate high-account-count markets from large-facility markets. Mississippi leads this metric with 73.8 employees per manufacturing establishment, followed by Kentucky with 70.1, Indiana with 66.1, Alabama with 65.7, Iowa with 65.6, Arkansas with 65.0, South Carolina with 64.4, Kansas with 63.7, Tennessee with 61.8, and Nebraska with 59.3.

These large-plant states often have automotive, food processing, appliances, paper, chemicals, aerospace, transportation equipment, and heavy industrial concentrations. A state with fewer establishments can still be a high-value manufacturing market if each site has more employees, more shifts, more equipment, and larger recurring purchasing needs. That is why a supplier or manufacturing sales team should look at establishment count and employment together.

Payroll per employee is a different signal. California records $91,763 in payroll per manufacturing employee, Massachusetts records $89,512, Washington records $89,335, Connecticut records $89,149, and Wyoming records $87,572. Higher payroll-per-employee markets often include advanced manufacturing, aerospace, electronics, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, energy equipment, and higher-cost labor markets. Payroll is not the same as total compensation, but it is a consistent state-level CBP benchmark.

How to Use This Manufacturing Establishment Data

For Manufacturing Industry Research

This manufacturing industry resource is built for people comparing manufacturing in the United States by state, not just looking for a single national headline. It gives a practical view of US manufacturing, manufacturing states, American manufacturing, and a state's manufacturing base through one Census table. The same structure can support economy articles, state economic development reports, manufacturing jobs research, and number of manufacturing jobs comparisons because the establishment, employee, and payroll numbers all come from the same Census CBP source.

Some readers will compare these 2023 CBP rows with 2024, 2025, and 2026 reports from BLS, Census, Federal Reserve, NAM, Deloitte, McKinsey, or state agencies. That is useful, but it should be done carefully. CBP establishment counts are not manufacturing GDP, output, or per capita factory density. They are employer establishment counts by state. If you need per capita rankings, divide the CBP establishment count by a current population source and cite that population source separately.

Ohio's manufacturing market shows why one metric is not enough. Ohio's 13,307 establishments, 689,133 employees, and $47.8B in payroll point to a deep industrial economy with many large employers. California has far more establishments, but Ohio's average establishment size is larger. For demand generation, workforce analysis, and state manufacturing comparisons, that difference matters.

The number of establishments also helps analysts avoid confusing a major manufacturing state with a single manufacturing subsector. NAICS manufacturing includes food plants, computer and electronic products, machinery manufacturing, semiconductor suppliers, fabricated metal shops, plastics processors, transportation equipment, and many other categories under the 2022 NAICS structure. This page uses data for the manufacturing sector as a whole. Illinois manufacturing, Michigan automotive suppliers, Washington aerospace facilities, and California electronics companies all sit inside the same NAICS 31-33 employer-establishment framework.

Manufacturing workers are distributed differently from establishments. A state can have a high plant count and a relatively modest employment base, or a smaller plant count and a much larger average facility. That is why the table includes both establishment count and employees. For example, Florida has 14,341 establishments and 358,707 employees, while Indiana has 7,938 establishments and 524,995 employees.

The top five states by establishment count are not automatically the top five states by output per worker, GDP contribution, or percent change in employment. For those questions, pair this CBP table with Bureau of Economic Analysis state GDP data from BEA, BLS employment series from QCEW, and Federal Reserve production indexes from G.17. California is the most populous state and has the largest share of establishments in this table, but large states should still be compared against the number of jobs, million manufacturing jobs thresholds, job losses in manufacturing, and output measures before drawing broader conclusions.

For Industrial Suppliers

If your addressable market is every plant that buys cutting tools, packaging, safety gear, sensors, maintenance services, or contract manufacturing support, the establishment count is the first sizing filter. California, Texas, Florida, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Michigan together contain 135,707 manufacturing establishments. A broad national campaign can start with those states because the account universe is deep.

If your product is priced for larger plants, employment density matters more. A maintenance software vendor, staffing firm, robotics integrator, warehouse automation provider, or energy management company may get more qualified opportunities by targeting states with larger average establishments. Mississippi, Kentucky, Indiana, Alabama, Iowa, Arkansas, South Carolina, Kansas, Tennessee, and Nebraska all exceed 59 employees per establishment in this dataset.

For Economic Development Teams

Establishment count can show industrial depth, but payroll and average site size show the quality and scale of the base. A state with many small establishments may need programs for supplier networks, export support, workforce training, and succession planning. A state with fewer but larger plants may need retention visits, infrastructure support, rail or power capacity, and specialized talent pipelines. CBP's establishment and payroll metrics give a compact way to compare those needs using a single federal source.

For Manufacturing Lead Generation

For B2B lead generation, the best state priority depends on the offer. A low-ticket maintenance product can benefit from high establishment density. A strategic consulting, automation, ERP, or recruiting offer needs to weight employment and payroll more heavily. The state table on this page gives five practical segmentation variables: account count, employee count, payroll base, average facility size, and payroll per employee. Use all five before deciding where to spend search, LinkedIn, trade publication, and outbound budget.

Methodology

This page uses the Census Bureau County Business Patterns 2023 state dataset downloaded from the official CBP dataset directory. The manufacturing row is NAICS `31----`, which is the aggregate for manufacturing. The legal form row is `-`, which covers all legal forms. We included the 50 states and Washington, DC. We excluded national, county, metro, ZIP, and industry-subsector rows because this page is designed as a state-by-state manufacturing establishment ranking.

The raw CBP payroll field is annual payroll in thousands of dollars. We converted that field into billions of dollars for the main table and calculated payroll per employee by multiplying payroll by 1,000 and dividing by CBP employment. Average employees per establishment is CBP employment divided by CBP establishments. Because those two metrics are calculations based on CBP fields, the linked source remains the Census CBP state dataset.

Census CBP can differ from BLS QCEW, Annual Survey of Manufactures, BEA GDP, Federal Reserve industrial production, and private market reports because each program answers a different question. QCEW is built around unemployment-insurance-covered employment and wages through BLS. ASM is a survey of manufacturing activity through Census. Federal Reserve industrial production tracks real output indexes rather than establishments through the G.17 release. For the number of employer manufacturing establishments by state, CBP is the correct primary source.

Key Takeaways

Across the United States, manufacturing remains a core part of the overall U.S. economy, even though the sector's share of U.S. employment varies sharply by state. The total U.S. footprint includes both small job shops and some of the world's largest production operations. Manufacturing's geography continues to change as companies add capacity, suppliers follow major plants, and regional labor markets adjust. Rounding out the top five states by establishment count is Ohio, a market whose mix of locations and employees shows why manufacturing continues to reward comparisons that go beyond one headline number.

The U.S. Department of Commerce data also help explain how manufacturing subsectors support local economies. An EV battery plant, for example, can reshape an industrial base through direct hiring and demand for nearby goods and services. If manufacturing would add one million jobs nationally, the effect would not be distributed evenly, just as manufactured goods exports and existing establishments are not spread evenly today. That is why state-level market sizing needs the location counts in this report alongside industry and trade data.

California is the largest manufacturing establishment market by a wide margin, with 35,300 establishments. Texas is the second-largest market, with 21,034 establishments and 869,062 manufacturing employees. Florida ranks third by establishments, but its 25.0 employees per establishment figure shows a smaller average plant profile than the Midwest and Southeast production states.

The Midwest remains heavily represented. Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Minnesota, and Missouri together account for 79,790 manufacturing establishments. The Southeast is also strong: North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, South Carolina, Kentucky, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Virginia combine for 43,671 establishments.

The most link-worthy part of this dataset is the side-by-side comparison. Many pages talk about manufacturing employment, wages, or output. Fewer combine establishment count, employment, payroll, average site size, and payroll per employee in one state table with direct federal source links. That combination makes the page useful for citations in economic development reports, supplier market-sizing pages, sales territory planning, and manufacturing workforce articles.

Cite This

Suggested citation: Manufacturing Lead Generation. "Manufacturing Establishments by State 2026." Updated September 2, 2026. Based on U.S. Census Bureau County Business Patterns 2023 state data. https://manufacturingleadgeneration.com/manufacturing-establishments-by-state/

Sources

1. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023 State Dataset, cbp23st.zip
2. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns Dataset Directory
3. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns Methodology
4. U.S. Census Bureau, NAICS 31-33 Manufacturing Definition
5. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages
6. U.S. Census Bureau, Annual Survey of Manufactures
7. Federal Reserve, Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization G.17
8. Bureau of Economic Analysis, GDP by State