BREAKING: Florida ranks #1 in the NATION for the STRONGEST ECONOMY — for the 3rd year in a row!

According to CNBC’s official 2025 “Top States for Business” rankings, Florida continues to lead the way in economic strength, thanks to its booming job market, strong GDP growth, and business-friendly environment.

With the U.S. economy solid but still facing elevated risk of recession — or, as President Trump described it in May, in a “transition period” — states are pitching themselves as the most stable place for companies to locate no matter what happens to the economy.

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“Multiple international headquarters, hundreds of billions of committed investments across a variety of industries and the economy to handle it all,” the Indiana Economic Development Corporation promises.

“Georgia job creation remains strong,” that state’s Department of Economic Development assures. “The State of Georgia is celebrating another year of sustained momentum for business recruitment and expansions.”

“Wisconsin is one of the most fiscally responsible states in the nation,” the state’s Economic Development Corporation says.

A CNBC analysis of all 50 state economic development websites finds that the economy — and factors relating to it such as job growth, foreign direct investment and the housing market — are the most frequently mentioned selling point this year. Economy popped up 222 times in our tally, well ahead of the next most mentioned factor, infrastructure, at 203. Under the methodology for CNBC’s annual business competitiveness study, America’s Top States for Business, that makes Economy the heaviest weighted category in 2025.

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But measuring state economies is more challenging than usual this year. Sweeping federal budget cuts are threatening to throw sand in the gears of an economic engine in many states. And tariffs — so far, a wildly moving target — are already crimping the economies of states that depend on international commerce.

“If you don’t know what your product is going to cost, if you don’t know if your export market is going to be there in six months, if you don’t understand the terms that you’re trading on, it makes it really hard to say, ‘Okay, we’re gonna take a risk and invest in this new product line’,” said Dan Anthony, president of Trade Partnership Worldwide, a Washington, D.C.-based economic data firm.

To score each state’s economy in this year’s Top States for Business study, we considered traditional measures such as state gross domestic product growth, job growth, state fiscal health, the number of major corporations headquartered in each state, and the strength of the local housing market. But we also considered how dependent each state is on a shrinking federal government for spending and hiring. And we considered each state’s exposure to a trade war, using data compiled for us by Trade Partnership Worldwide.

“The big things that we start out looking at is just really exposure to international trade, and particularly the goods trades,” Anthony said.

In addition, the data looks specifically at states’ exposure to China, which is at the heart of the trade war.

Some states are particularly vulnerable should the economy take a turn for the worse. But these states have what it takes to navigate a recession.