Key Findings
- Nearly 46 percent of Fortune 500 companies in 2026, 229 out of 500, were founded by immigrants or their children.
- These 229 New American Fortune 500 companies generated $9.8 trillion in revenue in fiscal year 2025. If compared with national economies, their combined revenue would make them the third-largest economy in the world, behind only the United States and China.
- New American Fortune 500 companies employ 15.3 million people worldwide, roughly equivalent to the population of the fifth-largest U.S. state.
- Among companies appearing on the Fortune 500 for the first time in 2026, New American companies include Galaxy Digital, Medline, Arista Networks, Marvell Technology, and Resideo Technologies.
- New American Fortune 500 companies are particularly prominent in several industries, including information technology, retail and wholesale trade, manufacturing, transportation, and finance.
Built by Immigrants: The Legacy of Innovation in America’s Fortune 500
Immigrant entrepreneurs have long played a crucial role in building America’s economic success. Many of the country’s largest and most recognizable companies were started by immigrants or their children. For this report, we refer to these businesses as “New American” companies.
They include household names spanning nearly every part of the American economy—from finance and technology to entertainment, healthcare, manufacturing, and consumer products. JPMorgan Chase, Disney, Broadcom, Pfizer, and Estée Lauder are just a few examples of companies whose histories are connected to immigrants or the children of immigrants.
Since the American Immigration Council released its first New American Fortune 500 report in 2011, our analyses have consistently found that more than two out of every five Fortune 500 companies—the 500 largest U.S. corporations by revenue—were founded by immigrants or their children.
That pattern continues in 2026. Nearly 46 percent of all Fortune 500 companies—229 out of 500—were founded by immigrants or their children.
How Many Fortune 500 Companies Were Founded by Immigrants or Their Children?
Looking at the companies that made the 2026 Fortune 500 list, we find that 45.8 percent, or 229 companies, were founded by immigrants or their children.
Of those companies, 108 were founded by immigrants and 121 were founded by the children of immigrants.
The 2026 Fortune 500 also welcomed a new group of companies to the ranking. Among them were several businesses with immigrant roots, demonstrating that immigrant entrepreneurship is not simply part of the history of corporate America—it continues to shape the companies rising to prominence today.
The presence of New American companies among this year’s newcomers also illustrates something important about the Fortune 500 itself. The companies on the list change as the American economy evolves, but immigrants and their children continue to be well represented among the entrepreneurs responsible for building the country’s largest businesses.
New American Fortune 500 Companies Generated $9.8 Trillion in Revenue
The economic scale of these companies is enormous. In fiscal year 2025, the 229 New American companies on the 2026 Fortune 500 generated a combined $9.8 trillion in revenue, compared with $8.6 trillion generated by New American Fortune 500 companies in the previous year’s analysis.
One way to understand the magnitude of $9.8 trillion is to compare it with the economies of entire countries. In 2025, Germany’s gross domestic product (GDP) was approximately $5.0 trillion, Japan’s was $4.4 trillion, and India’s was $3.9 trillion.
In other words, if the New American Fortune 500 companies were a country, their combined revenues would make them the third-largest economy in the world, behind only the United States and China.
The comparison is imperfect because corporate revenue and GDP measure different aspects of economic activity, but it provides a useful sense of scale. The businesses founded by immigrants and their children represent an extraordinary concentration of economic activity.
New American Fortune 500 Companies Employ More Than 15 Million People
These companies are also major employers. In fiscal year 2025, the average New American Fortune 500 company employed 66,808 workers. Together, the 229 companies employed 15.3 million people worldwide.
To put that number in perspective, if those workers made up a U.S. state, its population would rank fifth in the country—behind New York, with roughly 20 million residents, but ahead of Pennsylvania, with approximately 13.1 million residents, and Illinois, with approximately 12.7 million.
The employment figures demonstrate how businesses with immigrant roots contribute to the economy far beyond their founders. Companies that may have begun with one entrepreneur, one family, or a small group of founders can ultimately support tens or hundreds of thousands of workers.
The Economic Impact of New American Fortune 500 Companies Across the States
The economic impact of New American Fortune 500 companies can also be seen geographically. The headquarters of these companies are concentrated in several of the country’s largest state economies. New York leads the country with 34 New American Fortune 500 companies, followed by California with 29, Texas with 22, Illinois with 19, Florida with 13, and Virginia with 12.
Together, the New American companies headquartered in these six states account for trillions of dollars in annual revenue and millions of workers worldwide.
The concentration of these firms in major business centers such as New York, California, and Texas underscores the connection between immigration, entrepreneurship, and some of America’s most economically dynamic regions.
But New American companies are not confined to one part of the country or one type of economy. Their presence across states and industries reflects how deeply immigrant entrepreneurship has become embedded in the broader U.S. economy.
New American Companies Span the U.S. Economy
The influence of immigrant entrepreneurs and their children is particularly striking when the Fortune 500 is examined by industry. In several industry sectors, New American companies make up a majority of Fortune 500 firms: 75.0 percent of administrative and support service companies, 60.9 percent of information companies, and more than half of retail trade, wholesale trade, and manufacturing companies.
These results show that immigrant entrepreneurship is not concentrated exclusively in technology or any other single sector. Companies with immigrant roots are leaders across finance, manufacturing, healthcare, hospitality, consumer goods, and many other areas of the economy.
Immigrant Entrepreneurship Remains a Competitive Advantage
The Fortune 500 list represents only the largest end of a much broader story about immigrant entrepreneurship in the United States. In 2023, immigrants accounted for 23.6 percent of all entrepreneurs nationwide, with substantially higher shares in some industries.
Most immigrant-owned businesses will never become Fortune 500 corporations. But the companies that do reach that scale demonstrate what can happen when entrepreneurs have opportunities to start businesses, attract investment, hire workers, and expand.
The 2026 Fortune 500 provides another striking example. Nearly half of America’s largest companies have an immigrant or child-of-immigrant founder. Their combined revenues approach $10 trillion, and they employ more than 15 million people around the world.
Those numbers have remained remarkably resilient from year to year even as individual companies enter and leave the Fortune 500. In 2023, 44.8 percent of Fortune 500 companies were New American companies. That share rose to 46.0 percent in 2024 and a record 46.2 percent in 2025 before settling at 45.8 percent in 2026.
Companies change and industries evolve, but the broader finding remains consistent: immigrants and their children continue to play an outsized role in building America’s largest companies and strengthening the country’s economic competitiveness.
