Number of Chicago businesses fall to 10-year low

Chicago had fewer licensed businesses operating in the city in 2024 than during any year in the past decade, thanks to 17% of its businesses disappearing since 2015.

Analysis of Chicago business license data by the Illinois Policy Institute shows the city was home to 54,135 businesses with an active license in 2015. A decade later, that number has dropped to 44,840.

Among Chicago’s neighborhoods, the Magnificent Mile community on the Near North Side saw the largest percentage decline in active business licenses during the past decade, with the number falling from 1,600 to 784 last year – a 51% drop.

Only 28 of Chicago’s 98 neighborhoods reported having more active business licenses in 2024 than they did one decade prior.

Businesses in Chicago pay the third-highest state corporate income tax rates in the nation. They also pay the highest commercial property taxes in the U.S.

That’s in addition to the seventh-highest combined state and local sales tax rate and one of the most punitive unemployment insurance tax structures in the nation – just because they operate in the city.

Big businesses such as Boeing, Caterpillar, TTX, Citadel and Tyson have already left Chicago, but many small businesses have also closed. Small businesses traditionally create most new jobs in any state.


(AP Photo Kiichiro Sato)