Entrepreneurship
Are immigrants more likely to start businesses?
Yes. Immigrants are more likely to become entrepreneurs than U.S.-born Americans. Immigrants play an outsized role in business creation and are a crucial part of the U.S. economy.Today, immigrants make up 23.6% of all entrepreneurs nationwide, even though they account for just 14.3% of the U.S. population.
Immigrant entrepreneurs start businesses ranging from neighborhood small shops to some of the largest and most successful companies in the country, including a significant portion of Fortune 500 businesses. They create jobs, generate income, and contribute to economic growth in communities across the United States.
What kind of businesses do immigrants start?
Immigrants start businesses across virtually every sector of the U.S. economy. They are particularly prominent in industries including accommodations and food services, construction, professional services, transportation, retail, and healthcare.For example, immigrants make up one-third of entrepreneurs in the accommodations and food services industry, as well as 26.6% of entrepreneurs in construction.
Immigrant entrepreneurs also start and build companies that grow far beyond the small-business stage. Some of America’s best-known corporations — such as Amazon, Apple, NVIDIA, and Levi Strauss & Co. — were founded by immigrants or their children.
How many people do immigrant-owned businesses employ?
Immigrant-owned businesses provide millions of jobs for American workers. The latest data shows the significant role immigrant-owned and immigrant-founded businesses play in job creation.The impact is especially visible among the country’s biggest and most valuable companies. In the 2025 Fortune 500, a total of 231 companies — nearly half of all Fortune 500 companies — were founded by immigrants or children of immigrants.
These companies include businesses founded directly by immigrants as well as companies founded by the children of immigrants. Of the 231 New American Fortune 500 companies in 2025, 109 were founded by immigrants and 122 were founded by children of immigrants.
Do immigrants create jobs?
Yes. Immigrant entrepreneurs are job creators. New businesses are a major source of job growth in the United States, and immigrants play a particularly important role in business creation.Our research shows that immigrant-founded businesses often grow into major employers and economic engines. Nearly half of the Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children. Collectively, these companies employed more than 15.4 million people worldwide and generated $8.6 trillion in revenue in fiscal year 2024.
Immigrant entrepreneurship benefits more than the entrepreneurs themselves: immigrant-founded and immigrant-owned businesses create opportunities for workers, support local economies, and contribute to innovation and economic growth. They have been especially helpful as baby boomers retire, fueling growth in sectors that would have otherwise seen major declines.
How do immigrants contribute to America’s biggest companies?
Immigrants and their children have founded some of America's most influential companies — and their presence among the nation's largest businesses continues to grow.In 2025, 46.2% of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children, the highest share recorded by the Council since we began tracking immigrant-founded Fortune 500 companies in 2011.
Among the 14 companies appearing on the Fortune 500 for the first time in 2025, a total of 10 were founded by immigrants or their children. This included companies rising in the ranks of the Fortune 500, like Ace Hardware and Sirius XM Holdings.
Immigrant-founded and immigrant-descended companies are particularly prominent in major industries. They account for 80% of Fortune 500 companies in professional and other services, 65.6% in manufacturing, and 57.5% in information.
Why are immigrants more likely to become entrepreneurs?
There’s no single reason immigrants have higher rates of entrepreneurship. Starting a business can provide immigrants with an opportunity to use their skills in their new home, pursue economic mobility for themselves and their families, and serve needs in their communities.Immigrants also bring skills, knowledge, experiences, and connections from around the world. Their businesses range from local ventures to companies that operate on a global scale.
It’s worth noting, however, that the United States doesn’t have a dedicated visa specifically for immigrant entrepreneurs, despite relying heavily on their contributions. This gap can make it difficult for promising foreign entrepreneurs to establish and grow businesses in the United States — even when they have the resources and ideas to do so. Coupled with increasingly restrictive U.S. immigration policies, it has become even more difficult to drive international talent to this country.
Supporting immigrant entrepreneurs — and creating streamlined pathways that allow talented entrepreneurs to build and grow businesses in the United States — can help strengthen the U.S. economy, provide jobs to Americans, and build up local communities.
Atlanta mayor announces plans for welcoming new arrivals
Mayor Kasim Reed on Wednesday announced his administration will create an office of multicultural affairs as part of Atlanta’s efforts to create a welcoming environment for everyone regardless of race, ethnicity or native country. The mayor also disclosed the Atlanta Police Department will create… Read More
10 Indicators That Immigrants Initiate Job Creation
40% of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children. Immigrants are more than twice as likely as the native-born to start a business. Immigrants are 13% of the US pop but started 28% of US companies founded in 2011. Immigrants… Read More
10 Reasons Your Wallet Should Want Immigration Reform
Immigration reform would increase real GDP by 5.4% over the next 20 years. A 5.4% increase in GDP would add $1.4 trillion to the U.S. economy. Immigration reform would also decrease federal deficits by $1.2 trillion over the next 20 years. Read More
Hope for the unfinished business of immigration reform
Conventional wisdom has it that immigration reform is dead. I couldn’t disagree more. Though action on reform this year is unlikely, the political calculus is shifting, creating a window of opportunity in 2015. Even so, stubborn myths persist about immigration reform, namely, that Republicans don’t support it, that it’s bad… Read More
Cities and Regions Explore Ways to Maximize Migration’s Local Dividends
Local officials are recognizing that immigration can play a role in their broader growth and development strategies. As Demetrios Papademetriou of the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) explains, immigration can be an economic windfall for their communities through more jobs and growth. But these benefits are not automatic… Read More
British Entrepreneur Moves to U.S. to Found Successful Audiovisual Equipment Company
After transferring his already successful audiovisual company from Europe to the United States, Mark Wilkins founded Stampede, a large distributor of audiovisual equipment, here in the United States, based in upstate New York. When Mark Wilkins, the CEO of Stampede, moved to the United… Read More
U.S. competitiveness tied to solving immigration problems
President Barack Obama is expected to announce momentous decisions soon on the use of executive authority to help the more than 60,000 children fleeing Central American violence who have crossed into Texas, and an equal number of families currently being held at the border. While Congress… Read More
Restauranteur: Meaningful immigration reform needed this year
In Oklahoma, immigrants are making a significant mark in starting new businesses. Despite accounting for 5.5 percent of the state’s population, 7 percent of the state’s business owners are foreign born. Oklahoma’s foreign-born entrepreneurs generate more than $475 million in annual revenue, according to the Partnership for a New American… Read More
There’s reason for optimism on immigration
The drive to reform America’s broken immigration system suffered a major blow last week when neither the U.S. Senate nor the U.S. House could manage to agree on an appropriation to deal with the thousands of children, many traveling without their parents, who are arriving at our southern border every… Read More
America's story is an immigrant story.
