BOSTON – CNBC named Massachusetts the most improved state for business and the best state for business in New England in its annual rankings released on June 10, 2025. The network ranked Massachusetts as the 20th best state for business in the United States, up 18 positions from 38th in 2024. In 2024, the state’s overall ranking fell 23 spots from 2023.
In the 20254 rankings, Vermont (37th) and Connecticut (32) ranked higher than Massachusetts.
The CNBC rankings include rankings in seven areas that combine to create the overall ranking. In each of those areas, Massachusetts ranked:
- Economy: 15
- Infrastructure: 35
- Workforce: 23
- Cost of Doing Business: 49
- Business Friendliness: 42
- Quality of Life: 8
- Technology and Innovation: 4
CNBC writer Scott Cohn says that the economy became the most important single category for 2025, and Massachusetts improved its ranking from 40 last year to 15 in 2025.
Cohn also wrote that the state’s dependency on the federal government played a larger factor in CNBC’s rankings this year and supported the rise in rankings for Massachusetts. In 2024, federal funds made up 30 percent of the state’s funding, making it the 14th least dependent state on Washington D.C.
Wyoming ranked the least dependent at 19 percent, while Louisiana ranked the most dependent with 50 percent.
CNBC cited the conflict between Harvard University and President Donald Trump and the administration’s focus on cutting federal health and science research grants as a threat to the state. Massachusetts received the third-largest amount of those grants from the federal government.
CNBC, a business news channel focused on global business news and real-time financial market coverage. NBC Universal News Group owns the channel, which was founded in 1989.
