South Carolina vs neighboring states: service businesses per resident

South Carolina sits in the middle of its region on business density. We counted employer establishments in the service sectors for South Carolina and five neighbors (North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Florida and Alabama) and divided by each state's 2024 population. South Carolina has 14.2 service establishments per 1,000 residents. That is fourth of the six and below the U.S. rate of 15.9.

Florida is the outlier at 18.4, helped by a large professional services and real estate base and a population that includes many retirees and seasonal residents. Georgia and North Carolina are close to South Carolina. Tennessee and Alabama have fewer service businesses per person. Across all industries, not just services, the order is the same: Florida 27.6 establishments per 1,000, Georgia and North Carolina 23.4, South Carolina 22.4, Tennessee 20.8 and Alabama 20.5.

South Carolina stands out for hospitality and personal services and lags in professional services. It has 2.23 accommodation and food service establishments per 1,000 residents, the highest of the six states, which fits a coastal tourism economy. It also has 2.36 repair and personal care establishments (sector 81, which covers auto repair, salons, dry cleaners and similar), about the same as North Carolina and Florida.

Professional, scientific and technical services (law, accounting, engineering, design, consulting and marketing firms) are thinner. South Carolina has 2.30 per 1,000 residents, against 2.97 in Georgia, 4.05 in Florida and 2.91 nationally. Health care and social assistance is similar: 2.32 per 1,000 in South Carolina, compared with 2.69 in Georgia and 2.95 nationally.

Finance and insurance runs between 1.23 and 1.55 establishments per 1,000 residents in all six states, so South Carolina (1.40) is typical. Real estate has a wider spread: Tennessee and Alabama have about one real estate establishment per 1,000 residents, against 1.41 in South Carolina and 2.04 in Florida. For a bank, insurance agency or property manager, South Carolina is neither crowded nor thin compared with its neighbors.

Yes. Annual payroll per employee in South Carolina's service sectors is $49,489, the lowest of the six states and about 73% of the U.S. figure of $68,107. North Carolina is at $59,800, Georgia at $63,096 and Alabama at $52,413.

Part of the gap is industry mix. A quarter of South Carolina's service employment (24.7%) is in administrative and support services, which includes staffing agencies and employer organizations that report many workers under a single statewide location. Remove that sector and South Carolina's service payroll per employee is $50,693, still the lowest of the six. Within sectors the pattern holds: South Carolina has the lowest payroll per employee in finance and insurance ($82,117) and professional services ($84,302), and is near the bottom in health care ($57,637) and personal services ($36,371).

Lower payroll means lower labor costs for an employer, but it also signals household incomes that shape what customers can spend. Pricing, payment plans and how you present value matter more in a market where wages run below the regional average.

The SBA Office of Advocacy counts 530,402 small businesses in South Carolina, 99.4% of all businesses in the state, in its 2025 state profile. Those firms employ 863,326 people, or 42.9% of the state's employees. The SBA defines a small business as a firm with fewer than 500 employees and includes businesses with no employees, so its counts are much larger than the employer establishment counts above.

The 2025 SBA profiles, based on 2022 Census data, show a similar share of employment in small businesses across the region. Alabama is highest at 46.0% and Florida lowest at 39.6%.

For a South Carolina service company, the numbers point to a market with room in professional services and health care, where the state has fewer firms per resident than its neighbors, and a crowded field in hospitality and personal services, where it already has as many or more.

If you are thinking about expanding across state lines, density is only one factor. A Charlotte-area accounting firm weighing a Rock Hill office will find fewer competitors per resident in South Carolina, but also lower average pay in the sector, which affects both hiring and what clients expect to spend. A Savannah-based home health agency looking at the Lowcountry faces similar trade-offs.

Monvell's Consulting team uses public data like this to size markets and plan expansion, and our Data and Reporting work builds the dashboards that track whether a new market is paying off.

• Compare establishments per 1,000 residents in your specific sector, not just the overall total.
• Check payroll per employee in your sector to set realistic wage and pricing expectations.
• Look at county level data inside each state, because the state average hides large differences between metros and rural areas.
• Pair these counts with your own lead and sales data before committing to a new location.

Datasets: U.S. Census Bureau County Business Patterns (CBP) 2023 county file (released June 2025), and Census Population Estimates Vintage 2024 (co-est2024-alldata), state rows. SBA figures come from the Office of Advocacy 2025 state profiles, which use 2022 Census data.

Definitions: service establishments are employer establishments in NAICS sectors 51 (information), 52 (finance and insurance), 53 (real estate and rental), 54 (professional, scientific and technical), 56 (administrative and support), 61 (educational services), 62 (health care and social assistance), 71 (arts, entertainment and recreation), 72 (accommodation and food services) and 81 (other services). States are South Carolina (FIPS 45), North Carolina (37), Georgia (13), Tennessee (47), Florida (12) and Alabama (01).

Method: for each state we summed establishments, mid-March employment, annual payroll and the under-5 and 5-to-9 employee size classes across all county records, including each state's statewide (not county-assigned) category. We divided by the July 1, 2024 state population. Payroll per employee is annual payroll divided by mid-March employment. The U.S. figure sums all 50 states and DC.

Limits: CBP counts only businesses with paid employees and counts locations (establishments), not companies. Employment and payroll include noise added by the Census for confidentiality. Business data are for 2023 and population for 2024. Payroll per employee mixes full-time and part-time workers, so states with more part-time hospitality jobs show lower averages.