Rhode Island Small Businesses, by Industry and County 2026

Rhode Island’s small businesses employ a majority of the state’s workers, 224,480 people in all. In the country’s smallest state, 116,149 small firms make up 98.9% of all businesses, most of them one-person operations, and the work sits mostly in services, led by health care, a Providence finance cluster, the universities and a tourist coast.

The SBA puts the split at “51.1 percent of Rhode Island employment in 2022, which exceeded the national small business employment share.” In the year to March 2024, small firms produced a net 4,102 jobs, 79.8% of all net job creation in the state, and private employment grew 1.5% across 2024. New business applications reached a recent high in 2025. What the state does for a living, sector by sector, fills most of what follows.

The figures below are drawn entirely from federal and Rhode Island state records, listed in full at the end.

Small-Business Count in the Smallest State

By the SBA’s 2025 Rhode Island profile, the state’s 116,149 small businesses are 98.9% of all its firms, and 92,358 of them, about 80%, have no employees. The count is up from 109,983 a year earlier, a 5.6% gain.

• The 23,791 small firms with employees are 95.0% of Rhode Island’s employers and carry an $11.79 billion payroll, 45.4% of the state total (SUSB 2022).
• Those without employees booked $4.89 billion in receipts in 2022, and 87.7% file as sole proprietorships (NES 2022).
• The most common small-business fields by count are professional and technical services (16,365), transportation and warehousing (13,779, almost all owner-operators), construction (12,006), real estate (11,895) and other services (11,779).

What Rhode Island Works In

Health care and social assistance is the largest private employer by a wide margin, 84,475 jobs, about a fifth of all private work, and it added the most in 2024, up 4.1%. Accommodation and food is second at 51,937, the lowest-paid of the big sectors at $30,129, and retail third at 47,450. Manufacturing is fourth, 39,858 jobs at $71,956. Professional, scientific and technical services is spread across 9,418 establishments, more than any sector, and pays $104,884, about 58% above the private average. The totals track industry cells, never individual firms. Government of all levels adds 61,755 jobs, 12.5% of Rhode Island’s employment.

• The best-paying sectors are management of companies ($133,149), utilities ($125,425), finance and insurance ($114,122) and information ($110,360).
• Wholesale trade ($98,522) and construction ($81,512) also pay well above the field.
• At the low end sit accommodation and food ($30,129), arts and recreation ($39,736) and retail ($41,585), each under the $66,500 private average.

For all its size, Rhode Island is a services economy first. It cares for people, teaches them, insures them and feeds visitors, and only then makes things.

A Marine-Manufacturing State, Not a Textile One

What Rhode Island still builds is boats. Ship and boat building is 7,697 jobs at $75,506, up 11.4% in 2024, and it accounts for 95.2% of the state’s transportation-equipment jobs, the fastest-growing corner of its manufacturing. The work concentrates on Narragansett Bay and in Washington County’s Quonset cluster, where manufacturing is the top private sector at 11,815 jobs. That is the marine-and-defense supply chain showing up in the numbers, though the individual yards stay out of them.

The older manufacturing legacy is fading. The Providence jewelry trade survives as a shrinking cell, folded into other miscellaneous manufacturing, 2,592 jobs and down 12.4% in 2024, with the pure jewelry sub-cell too small to disclose. Textiles, the state’s eighteenth-century claim to fame as the birthplace of American factory production, are now statistically negligible: the mill cells are suppressed and apparel is down to 96 jobs. Rhode Island’s live manufacturing story is marine, not textile.

Providence, and the Other Four Counties

Providence County holds most of the state’s work, 252,456 private jobs at $67,136, its health-care cell alone 55,723 and its finance-and-insurance cell 17,946 at $116,479, the Providence money hub. The other four counties each carry a distinct texture.

• Washington County grew fastest, private employment up 3.6%, and manufacturing is its leading private sector at 11,815 jobs paying $75,841, up 6.2%, the South County marine cluster.
• Newport County leans on the coast, accommodation and food its largest private employer at 7,632 jobs, beside a high-paid professional-services cell ($94,425) near the naval base.
• Kent County, around Warwick, centers on health care (14,444 jobs) and retail.
• Bristol, the smallest county, splits between hospitality, health care and a university town’s education base.

What 2024 Added and Trimmed

Private employment rose 1.5% in 2024, a net 6,254 jobs, and the movement leaned toward services.

• The biggest gain was in health care, up 4.1% and 3,364 jobs.
• Private education grew strongly, up 6.8% (1,448 jobs), the university engine, and arts and recreation matched it at 6.8%.
• Construction gained 3.1% (676 jobs) and transportation and warehousing 2.6%.

The losses sat on the office and back-office side: administrative and support work fell 2.2%, the biggest single drop at 639 jobs, management of companies 5.1%, information 2.8%, manufacturing 1.3% and finance and insurance 0.8%. The year’s shape was care and teaching adding while support functions thinned, the same tilt the pay figures describe.

A Steady Run of New Business Filings

Rhode Island’s new business applications rose sharply late last decade and have held high since. Because the Census tallies them monthly and the yearly figure is a sum of those months, read the totals as close estimates: about 10,236 in 2018, a dip to 8,492 in 2019, then a pandemic-era climb into a steady 10,900-to-11,800 band, 11,629 in 2023, 11,226 in 2024, and 11,800 in 2025, the highest in the series’ recent history and roughly 39% above 2019. A cleaner startup signal, the applications likely to lead to hiring, reached 4,090 in 2025, all but matching its 2021 peak.

Underneath, establishments turned over steadily: 5,385 opened against 4,854 that closed in the year to March 2024, a net gain of 531. Small firms did most of the hiring, a net 4,102 jobs, which came to 79.8% of net job growth statewide that year.

Restaurants at the Front of the Loan Line

Two federal loan programs moved in opposite directions in fiscal 2024. SBA 7(a) lending, the working-capital program, grew on both counts, 252 loans (up 26.6%) and $77.4 million (up 8.4%), and restaurants led it by loan count, 38 of them, a Main-Street pattern; the money clustered in Providence and Kent. The 504 program, which funds fixed assets, contracted to 43 loans and $16.5 million as deal sizes shrank, dollars down 42.3%, before rebounding to $33.8 million in fiscal 2025. Community Reinvestment Act filings show a further $228.4 million lent to Rhode Island firms with under $1 million in revenue in 2023.

Exports are a smaller story for a small state. Identified exporters sold $2.8 billion in goods abroad in 2023, and small firms held $1.3 billion of that, 46.7%, across 1,770 small exporters.

Urban Owners, and a High Hispanic Share

Women own 42.8% of Rhode Island businesses, and ownership tilts heavily urban, 100,594 urban-owned firms against 10,694 rural, the shape of a densely settled state.

• Hispanic owners hold a relatively high 16.6%, 18,304 businesses, a share above their 15.2% of the workforce.
• Veterans own 4.8% of businesses (4,669 firms); Black owners run 8,181 and Asian owners 4,795.
• The largest single group by race is white-owned businesses, 99,191 of them.

An $84 Billion Economy, Mostly Services

Rhode Island’s economy was $84.0 billion in 2025 at current prices, after $80.4 billion in 2024. With inflation stripped out, it grew about 1.1% in 2025, following 2.2% in 2024, by the BEA’s accounts.

The money comes from services more than from anything the state makes. Its largest pieces:

• Finance, insurance and real estate, 24.4% of output, the largest slice by far.
• Education and health care, 13.5%, matching the state’s biggest employers.
• Government, 12.5%; professional and technical services, 7.0%; manufacturing, 6.8%.

A Record Year on the Coast

Rhode Island Commerce reported 2024 as a record for tourism: 29.4 million visitors, who spent $6.0 billion directly, up 7%, supporting 88,509 jobs, about 13% of state employment (state-agency figures, model-based; the wider economic impact, at $8.8 billion, includes indirect effects and is counted separately).

Rhode Island runs on services: money, insurance and real estate first, then care, teaching and hospitality, with a small but growing marine-manufacturing edge on the bay.

Setting Up in Rhode Island, and the Taxes That Follow

The Articles, the Annual Report, and a $50 Window

A Rhode Island LLC files Articles of Organization with the Rhode Island Department of State, Business Services Division, for $150. After that, every LLC files an annual report for $50, and the timing is particular to Rhode Island: it is due between February 1 and May 1 each year, with a $25 penalty if it slips past May 31. The LLC must also maintain a resident agent with a Rhode Island street address. Our step-by-step on starting an LLC in Rhode Island takes it from the name check to that first annual report.

A Flat 7% Sales Tax and a $400 Minimum

Rhode Island charges a single 7% sales tax statewide, with no city or county add-on anywhere, so the rate a business collects is the same in Providence as in Westerly. The corporate income tax is a flat 7.0%, but the figure that catches new owners is the minimum: every corporation, and every LLC taxed as one, owes at least a $400 tax each year regardless of profit. The personal income tax is graduated across three brackets, 3.75%, 4.75% and a top 5.99%. Rhode Island’s own minimum wage sits above the federal floor, $16.00 in 2026 after $15.00 in 2025, and is legislated to reach $17.00 in 2027.

That resident agent is a required piece, and it pays to choose well; our own roundup ranks the registered agent services in Rhode Island.

If you would rather not file it yourself, our rundown of the best LLC services in Rhode Island compares providers on price and turnaround.

Rhode Island Industry, Tax and LLC Questions

Sources

• Industry, pay and county employment for 2024 come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages.
• Firm counts, ownership, exports and job churn are read from the SBA Office of Advocacy’s 2025 Rhode Island Small Business Profile.
• The Bureau of Economic Analysis regional accounts supply the state GDP levels, in current dollars and adjusted for inflation.
• Application counts come from the Census Bureau’s Business Formation Statistics, and the nonemployer totals and receipts from its Nonemployer Statistics.
• Loan figures are summed by fiscal year from the SBA’s 7(a) and 504 FOIA files.
• The formation and annual-report rules sit with the Rhode Island Department of State, under Title 7, Chapter 16 of the General Laws.
• Sales, corporate and income tax rates are the Rhode Island Division of Taxation’s, set in Title 44 of the General Laws; the minimum wage is the Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training’s.
• Tourism figures for 2024 are Rhode Island Commerce’s.