Florida Business Formations: The H1 2026 Report
Florida registered 389,997 new business entities in the first half of 2026, up 10.6% from 352,476 in the same window last year. The state is on pace to clear 700,000 formations for the first time. Underneath that growth, the mix is shifting: LLC registrations rose 13.3% while new domestic corporations fell 14.4%, the first outright decline in the corporate form since our records begin in 2023.
Florida formed 389,997 new business entities in H1 2026, a 10.6% increase year over year. LLCs took 85.9% of all new registrations. New domestic corporations fell 14.4% even as total formations grew.
Key findings
- 389,997 formations in H1 2026, against 352,476 in H1 2025 and 323,669 in H1 2024. Growth of 10.6% year over year.
- The domestic corporation is shrinking in absolute terms. New DOMP filings fell from 38,703 to 33,143, down 14.4%, while every other major entity type grew.
- Growth has moved away from the southeast. Miami-Dade grew 3.4% and Broward 4.1%. Polk, Pasco, Lake, St. Johns, Flagler, and Hernando all grew above 19%.
How many businesses formed in Florida in the first half of 2026?
Florida recorded 389,997 new corporate entities between January 1 and June 30, 2026. That is 37,521 more than the same period in 2025, and it continues a run that has now added roughly 10% a year for two consecutive years.
The longer series puts that in context. Florida formed 602,921 entities in 2023 and 602,925 in 2024, a difference of four filings across a full year. Then 2025 jumped to 665,608, and 2026 is running ahead of that pace. Two flat years followed by two growth years is a real inflection, not noise.
| Month | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 | 2026 vs 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 51,119 | 59,480 | 63,084 | +6.1% |
| February | 51,460 | 56,647 | 60,227 | +6.3% |
| March | 53,490 | 61,164 | 71,283 | +16.5% |
| April | 57,726 | 60,138 | 68,561 | +14.0% |
| May | 56,598 | 58,716 | 64,579 | +10.0% |
| June | 53,276 | 56,331 | 62,263 | +10.5% |
| H1 total | 323,669 | 352,476 | 389,997 | +10.6% |
Which business structures are Florida owners choosing?
The LLC keeps taking share, and this year it took share from an entity type that shrank outright. New Florida LLC registrations rose from 304,850 to 345,442, up 13.3%. New domestic profit corporations fell from 38,703 to 33,143, down 14.4%. LLCs now account for 85.9% of all new Florida registrations, up from 83.5% a year ago.
A falling corporation count during a year when total formations rose 10% is the notable part. In H1 2025 the corporation share was 10.6% of new filings. It is now 8.2%. The decline is steady across the second quarter rather than concentrated in a single month: 5,836 new corporations in April, 5,052 in May, 4,853 in June.
| Entity type | H1 2025 | H1 2026 | Change | 2026 share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Florida LLC (FLAL) | 304,850 | 345,442 | +13.3% | 85.9% |
| Domestic Corporation (DOMP) | 38,703 | 33,143 | ā14.4% | 8.2% |
| Foreign LLC (FORL) | 8,975 | 10,108 | +12.6% | 2.5% |
| Domestic Nonprofit (DOMNP) | 8,501 | 9,227 | +8.5% | 2.3% |
| Foreign Corporation (FORP) | 3,328 | 3,600 | +8.2% | 0.9% |
| Other (LP, FORNP, FORLP, trust) | 609 | 797 | +30.9% | 0.2% |
Foreign LLC registrations, entities formed in another state that file to operate in Florida, grew 12.6% to 10,108. That is the inbound-business signal in this dataset, and it is growing slightly faster than domestic formation. We broke down where those entities come from in out-of-state businesses registering in Florida.
Where in Florida is formation growth actually happening?
Not in the counties that usually get the attention. Miami-Dade added 2,579 formations year over year, a 3.4% gain on a very large base. Broward grew 4.1%, Orange 4.8%, and Seminole 4.5%. All four came in well under the statewide 10.6%.
The double-digit growth sits in the middle of the state and along the northeast coast. Polk and Pasco both grew 16.0%. Lake grew 19.1%, Clay 19.5%, Santa Rosa 19.4%, Walton 20.5%, Charlotte 20.0%, Citrus 20.9%, St. Johns 22.1%, Hernando 22.1%, and Flagler 23.6%. These are smaller counties where a few hundred filings move the percentage, but the direction is consistent across all of them, which is harder to dismiss than any single county.
| County | H1 2025 | H1 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pinellas | 27,077 | 34,492 | +27.4% |
| Flagler | 1,363 | 1,685 | +23.6% |
| Saint Johns | 3,826 | 4,670 | +22.1% |
| Hernando | 1,788 | 2,184 | +22.1% |
| Citrus | 1,198 | 1,448 | +20.9% |
| Walton | 1,594 | 1,920 | +20.5% |
| Charlotte | 1,901 | 2,282 | +20.0% |
| Clay | 1,879 | 2,246 | +19.5% |
| Santa Rosa | 1,700 | 2,030 | +19.4% |
| Lake | 3,921 | 4,670 | +19.1% |
Pinellas tops that list, but its 27.4% is not what it appears to be. Nearly 82% of the county's entire year-over-year gain traces to one registered agent address in St. Petersburg. Strip that building out and Pinellas grew 12.2%, respectable and unremarkable. The full breakdown is in the address behind Pinellas County's formation surge.
Why March and April run so far above the rest of the year
March produced 71,283 formations, the highest month in the series, and April added 68,561. December 2025, by contrast, produced 40,530. The March peak runs 76% above the December floor.
That shape repeats every year and it is worth understanding before reading any single month as a trend. New owners cluster registrations in the first quarter so the entity exists cleanly for the tax year, and activity falls off through the holidays. A March-to-December comparison reads as a 34% collapse in 2025 and a 36% collapse in 2024, which says nothing about the economy. A March-to-March comparison is the one that carries information. We mapped the full seasonal curve in Florida's tax-season formation spike.
How many Florida businesses closed over the same period?
Florida recorded 80,755 dissolutions in H1 2026 against 70,303 a year earlier, up 14.9%. Reinstatements, entities coming back from administrative dissolution, rose 23.0% to 35,495.
Set against 389,997 formations, that is a formation-to-dissolution ratio of about 4.8 to 1. Closures are growing faster than formations in percentage terms, which is worth watching, though the absolute gap remains wide. The dissolution numbers also carry a sharp seasonal spike of their own, concentrated in April, which we cover in Florida's April dissolution wave.
About these numbers
Figures come from Florida Division of Corporations filings as republished in the sneyk dataset, covering January 1 through June 30, 2026.
Two adjustments matter for anyone reproducing this. First, counts are distinct corporations rather than filing rows. The state's daily files overlap and some records repeat, and in March and April 2025 the repeat rate reached roughly 48%. Counting rows instead of entities would make H1 2026 look like a decline rather than a 10.6% gain. Second, filings carrying a January 1 date are excluded from monthly figures. That date is used as a year-known, day-unknown placeholder and accounts for about 12,300 records per year, enough to distort January if left in.
The reporting window closes at June 30 because Florida publishes formations on a lag. A week that just ended typically shows about a third of the filings it will eventually contain, reaching roughly 99% after two weeks. July figures are still settling and are not reported here.
County-level data for all 67 counties is at sneyk.com/counties.