The Tennessee Secretary of State's Office released a quarterly report on the number of new businesses operating in the state, and the number o
The Tennessee Secretary of State’s Office released a quarterly report on the number of new businesses operating in the state, and the number of businesses who renewed filings. It said in the third quarter of 2023, Tennessee saw the largest number of new business filings in the data’s history.
The data stretches back to 1998. Most of the new businesses that started in Tennessee were Domestic LLCs, according to the report, and so were the number of businesses that renewed filings. The report showed 19,304 new filings and 32,954 renewal filings in the third quarter of 2023.
Around 8,500 new businesses started in the state’s four largest counties — Davidson, Knox, Shelby and Hamilton counties, accounting for around 44.1% of all new businesses in the state. Davidson County saw 3,270 new filings, while Shelby County saw 2,371 new filings. Knox County saw 1,837 new filings.
“Knox County continues to see the strongest rate of year-over-year growth in filings (up a very robust 54.2%),” the report said.
While the report analyzes trends in business filings for the last quarter, it also says that business filings are usually seasonal. Instead, leaders prefer to focus on year-over-year data, according to the report.
Over the last year, it said Tennessee saw filings for 77,596 new businesses and 331,310 business renewal filings — a 5.2% decrease compared to renewals from the third quarter of 2022. Foreign businesses saw the steepest decline of 8.9%, followed by domestic corporations which saw a decline of around 8.5%.
The state also saw 59,589 businesses closing over the third quarter of 2023 — an increase of 4.1% compared to the same time last year.
“The majority of dissolution typically occur in the third quarter of each year as entities are administratively closed on August 1 for failing to file an annual report,” the report said.
The report also said in the second quarter of 2023, “nominal personal income in Tennessee was $433.6 billion, representing an annualized growth rate of 4.2% over the previous quarter.”
