Illinois Business by the Numbers: 2026 Company Breakdown

Key findings

• Illinois ranks 9th nationally with 1,843,395 business records — 2.8% of all 64,799,929 U.S. records in the directory.
• An above-average share of large employers. Illinois is 5th for records of companies with 500+ employees (4,148), with 22.5 per 10,000 records against 14.0 nationally (5th of 52 states).
• Illinois has more healthcare & life science and food & beverage than the U.S. mix:Healthcare & Life Science is 9.5% of the state’s records against 7.4% nationally (1.3×); Food & Beverage is 1.8% of the state’s records against 1.4% nationally (1.2×).
• Chicago is the state’s largest business hub, with 25.6% of all Illinois records.
• Business is concentrated in a few metros: Chicago, Naperville and Rockford together hold 28.5% of the state’s records.

How Illinois ranks nationally

Illinois and its closest neighbours by total business records. Select a state to open its own study.

Top Illinois cities by number of business records

These 10 cities account for 35.4% of all records in Illinois. Select any city to browse its full company list.

Browse all Illinois companies →

Illinois businesses by industry

Every record is classified by its primary industry using NAICS/SIC codes; the shares are of all Illinois records. Select a sector to see those Illinois companies.

What sets Illinois apart

Sectors that make up a bigger share of Illinois’s records than of the U.S. as a whole. A ratio of 2.0× means the sector is twice as common here as nationally. Select a sector to browse it.

Illinois businesses by size

Most records in every state are small businesses. In Illinois, 2.34% of records with a known size have 51 or more employees, against 1.77% nationally. 1,211 records belong to companies with $1 billion or more in revenue.

What the numbers show

Illinois’s 1,843,395 records place it 9th nationally, 2.8% of the U.S. total, and 5th for large employers. That large-employer rank is well above its rank by records, so its business base is weighted toward bigger companies. Activity clusters in its largest metros — Chicago, Naperville and Rockford alone account for 28.5% of the state’s records — and the state leans toward healthcare & life science and food & beverage compared with the rest of the country. For buyers and sellers, that means the deepest pools of suppliers sit in a handful of cities and sectors; the charts above link straight into each so you can shortlist by capability and region.

Methodology

Figures count records in Factur’s U.S. business directory as of July 2026, classified by city and primary industry using NAICS/SIC codes. Records cover manufacturers, suppliers and businesses of all sizes. They are not a count of unique companies: one company can have several records (for example one per department or location), and some records are duplicates. That affects large companies most, so treat raw totals as an upper bound and rely on the ranks, shares and comparisons, which it affects much less. These are directory totals, not official census figures. Percentages are computed against the Illinois directory total; size shares use records with a known employee count. Data compiled by Factur, a sales and marketing firm for B2B manufacturers.