Greenville, Spartanburg and the Upstate: business and population figures

Greenville SC business statistics show a large, growing market with a heavy concentration of service businesses in Greenville County and lighter coverage in the counties around it. Across the seven Upstate counties, the U.S. Census Bureau's County Business Patterns (CBP) counted 32,987 business establishments with paid employees in 2023. Those locations employed 574,354 people in the March pay period and paid $31.0 billion in annual payroll.

The Census Bureau's Vintage 2024 estimates put the region's population at 1,506,181 in July 2024, up from 1,391,032 at the April 2020 estimates base. That is 8.3 percent growth, compared with 7.0 percent for South Carolina as a whole. The Upstate holds 27.5 percent of the state's residents and 26.8 percent of its employer businesses, and it captured 31.9 percent of all the people South Carolina added over those four years.

This profile uses the same method as our Midlands profile so the regions can be compared side by side. Every figure comes from public Census files, and the method is explained at the end.

Spartanburg County is the Upstate's growth leader at 12.6 percent from 2020 to 2024, the sixth-fastest rate among South Carolina's 46 counties. Greenville County added more people in absolute terms, 45,202, for 8.6 percent growth and a rank of eighth. Anderson grew 6.6 percent, Pickens 5.2 percent, Oconee 4.9 percent, Laurens 4.5 percent and Cherokee 2.7 percent.

The business base follows population closely. Greenville County has 15,493 employer establishments, more than twice Spartanburg's 7,399, and 27.1 establishments per 1,000 residents, the highest rate in the region. Laurens (14.0) and Cherokee (16.2) have the lowest rates, which usually means residents travel to Greenville or Spartanburg for some services.

Almost all of the Upstate's growth comes from people moving in. The Census Bureau's components of change show the seven counties gained 97,262 residents through net domestic migration and 19,432 through international migration between April 2020 and July 2024, while births minus deaths came to a net loss of 3,117. Domestic movers account for 84 percent of the region's population gain. People who relocate arrive without a dentist, an attorney, a hair stylist or a mechanic, and they choose new ones mostly through search, maps and reviews, so a growing share of every Upstate service business's market is people with no prior loyalty to anyone.

The fastest growth is in the suburban cities, not the two county seats. Fountain Inn grew 32.4 percent and Greer 30.9 percent between April 2020 and July 2024, and Mauldin, Simpsonville and Easley each grew between 17 and 21 percent. The City of Greenville grew 4.6 percent and the City of Spartanburg 2.3 percent.

For a service business this matters more than the county totals. Greer added 10,938 residents in four years, which is more than the entire 2020 population of Fountain Inn. New households pick a dentist, a salon, an insurance agent and a property manager within their first months in a new place, and they usually start by searching online.

Personal and repair services, professional services, health care and restaurants are the four largest service sectors in the Upstate, each with more than 3,000 locations. The region's mix is close to the state's, with a slightly larger share of personal and repair services (11.1 percent of all establishments versus 10.5 percent statewide) and a slightly smaller share of real estate (5.6 percent versus 6.3 percent).

Greenville County stands apart. Professional, scientific and technical services, which includes law firms, accountants, engineers, agencies and consultants, is its largest service sector with 2,092 locations, 13.5 percent of the county's businesses. In Spartanburg, Anderson and the four smaller counties, personal and repair services lead instead.

Across all industries, Upstate employers paid $54,044 in annual payroll per employee in 2023, about 2 percent above the state figure of $52,961. Greenville ($56,393) and Spartanburg ($56,430) are the highest in the region; Pickens County is the lowest at $40,893, partly because restaurants and personal services make up a larger share of its jobs.

Within service sectors the Upstate generally pays a little below the state average. Professional and technical services is the exception, at $84,487 per employee regionally and $92,579 in Greenville County. Businesses hiring office, clinical or technical staff in Greenville are competing with those employers for the same people, which affects both wages and how long roles stay open.

Most are small. In 2023, 71.5 percent of Upstate establishments had fewer than 10 employees, 22.8 percent had 10 to 49, and 5.7 percent had 50 or more. The statewide split is 72.2, 22.6 and 5.2 percent, so the Upstate has a slightly larger share of mid-size and large employers, which fits its manufacturing and corporate base.

For service businesses the practical reading is that most of your direct competitors are small teams. A 15-person practice or agency in Greenville is already larger than about three quarters of the businesses around it, and its advantage usually comes from systems: how fast it answers, how easy it is to book and how well it keeps clients coming back. Monvell's consulting and data and reporting work helps businesses check market figures like these against their own customer records before they commit budget to a new area.

Three patterns stand out for planning. If you are deciding where to open a second location or which suburbs to target with ads, start with the growth cities and compare them with the service density of their county.

• Growth is suburban. Greer, Fountain Inn, Mauldin, Simpsonville and Easley added people about four to seven times faster than the City of Greenville, so marketing and service areas built around downtown may miss where new households are forming.
• Greenville County is crowded; the outer counties are thin. At 18.0 service locations per 1,000 residents, Greenville is competitive, while Laurens (7.6) and Cherokee (9.1) have fewer local options per resident.
• Professional services pay sets the bar for office talent. With Greenville County professional firms paying $92,579 per employee, smaller service businesses should plan hiring budgets and timelines with that competition in mind.

Business counts, employment and payroll come from the U.S. Census Bureau's County Business Patterns 2023 county file (cbp23co.txt), which covers establishments with paid employees and excludes the self-employed. We summed 2-digit NAICS rows for Greenville (45045), Spartanburg (45083), Anderson (45007), Pickens (45077), Oconee (45073), Laurens (45059) and Cherokee (45021). Service establishments are NAICS sectors 51, 52, 53, 54, 56, 61, 62, 71, 72 and 81. Payroll per employee is annual payroll (reported in thousands) times 1,000, divided by employment in the pay period including March 12. Establishments under 10 employees are the sum of the under-5 and 5-to-9 size classes.

Population comes from the Census Bureau's Vintage 2024 county and city estimates, using the April 1, 2020 estimates base and the July 1, 2024 estimate. Migration and natural change are the sums of the file's 2020 to 2024 components of change columns for the seven counties. State totals include CBP establishments that the Census Bureau does not assign to a county, which is why county service counts sum to slightly less than the state's 77,948. CBP values contain noise added by the Census Bureau to protect respondents, so small county figures should be read as approximate. CBP counts locations, not companies, and a location's industry is its primary activity.