New Florida Corporations Fell 35% in a Decade
In 2015, Florida registered 100,253 new profit corporations. In 2025 it registered 65,655, a decline of 34.5%, over a decade in which total business formations nearly doubled. The LLC absorbed the difference and then some: it rose from 209,351 new registrations to 557,884 and now takes 85.8% of every new Florida business filing. What looks like a slow slide is actually two distinct periods, and the split explains more than the trend line does.
New Florida corporations fell from 100,253 in 2015 to 65,655 in 2025, down 34.5%, while total formations grew 96.5%. The corporation's share of new filings dropped from 29.6% to 9.9%. Almost all of the absolute decline happened after 2021.
Key findings
- The corporation held flat, then broke. Florida registered 100,253 new corporations in 2015 and 98,160 in 2021, essentially the same figure six years apart. By 2025 it was 65,655, down 33.1% in four years.
- Share fell for the whole decade anyway, from 29.6% of new filings to 9.9%, because everything around the corporation was growing while it stood still.
- The LLC gained 348,533 annual registrations over the same period, growing 166.5% against total growth of 96.5%.
- 2026 is extending both trends. Through July, new corporations are down 13.8% year over year while LLCs are up 12.2%, and the LLC share has reached 85.8%.
How has Florida entity choice changed since 2015?
Florida registered 338,800 new entities in 2015 and 665,629 in 2025. Across that span the mix inverted. Roughly three in ten new filings were corporations at the start. Roughly one in ten is now.
| Year | All formations | LLCs | LLC share | Corporations | Corp share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 338,800 | 209,351 | 61.8% | 100,253 | 29.6% |
| 2016 | 340,261 | 216,710 | 63.7% | 95,178 | 28.0% |
| 2017 | 365,176 | 242,654 | 66.4% | 93,250 | 25.5% |
| 2018 | 403,473 | 276,245 | 68.5% | 96,702 | 24.0% |
| 2019 | 362,730 | 256,763 | 70.8% | 76,940 | 21.2% |
| 2020 | 451,281 | 336,032 | 74.5% | 86,023 | 19.1% |
| 2021 | 609,882 | 473,868 | 77.7% | 98,160 | 16.1% |
| 2022 | 576,441 | 459,093 | 79.6% | 79,796 | 13.8% |
| 2023 | 602,931 | 488,813 | 81.1% | 77,594 | 12.9% |
| 2024 | 602,941 | 494,441 | 82.0% | 71,621 | 11.9% |
| 2025 | 665,629 | 557,884 | 83.8% | 65,655 | 9.9% |
| 2026 (Jan to Jul) | 449,533 | 385,847 | 85.8% | 36,696 | 8.2% |
The share column falls every single year. The corporation column does not, and that is the part most summaries of this trend get wrong.
Why the decline is really two different stories
From 2015 through 2021, Florida corporations did not collapse. They wobbled between 76,940 and 100,253, ending the period at 98,160, which is within 2.1% of where they started six years earlier. Over those same six years total formations grew 80.0%. The corporation was not shrinking. It was standing still while the market around it grew, and standing still is enough to take a share from 29.6% to 16.1%.
After 2021 the pattern changes. Corporations fell in each of the next four years, from 98,160 to 79,796 to 77,594 to 71,621 to 65,655. That is a 33.1% decline in absolute terms during a period when total formations rose 9.1%. This is a real contraction rather than a denominator effect, and it is still running: through July 2026 corporations are down another 13.8% against the same months of 2025.
| Period | Corporations | Change | All formations | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 to 2021 | 100,253 to 98,160 | ā2.1% | 338,800 to 609,882 | +80.0% |
| 2021 to 2025 | 98,160 to 65,655 | ā33.1% | 609,882 to 665,629 | +9.1% |
Why do Florida owners pick the LLC?
Cost and paperwork explain most of it. A Florida LLC files articles of organization and an annual report. It can be owned by one person, taxed as a sole proprietorship by default, and elect S corporation treatment later if payroll savings justify it. A corporation needs bylaws, a board, officers, minutes, and stock records to keep its liability shield intact, and it gets no tax advantage the LLC cannot elect into.
The one thing the corporation still does better is issue stock to outside investors on standard terms, which is why venture-backed companies keep incorporating. That is a small share of any state's formations. The volume sits with owner-operated businesses, and for those the LLC removed the reason to incorporate. We compare the two forms in detail in Florida LLC against corporation.
A second driver is that not every LLC is a business in the ordinary sense. Real estate holdings, vehicles, boats, and individual rental properties each commonly get their own single-purpose LLC. That practice inflates LLC counts relative to the number of people actually starting something, and it has no corporate equivalent. It is a real filing with real legal effect, so it belongs in the count, but it is worth knowing it is in there.
What happened to the other entity types?
They grew, quietly. Foreign LLCs, meaning entities formed in another state that register to operate in Florida, rose from 10,323 in 2015 to 18,101 in 2025, up 75.3%. Domestic nonprofits rose from 11,850 to 16,131, up 36.1%.
Both grew more slowly than the state total, so both also lost share, but neither shows the corporation's absolute reversal. That matters for reading the trend: the corporation is the only major Florida entity type registering fewer new filings today than it did a decade ago. We broke down where out-of-state registrants come from in out-of-state businesses registering in Florida.
What the 2026 numbers are doing to the trend
Extending it. Through the first seven months of 2026 Florida registered 385,847 new LLCs against 343,781 in the same months of 2025, up 12.2%. New corporations went the other way, 36,696 against 42,564, down 13.8%. The LLC share for the year to date is 85.8%, the highest in the series.
Nothing in the data points to a floor yet. The corporation share has fallen in each of the eleven years measured here, and the rate of decline has been faster since 2021 rather than slower. Whether the absolute count settles somewhere or keeps falling is the open question, and the next clean read on it comes at year end.
About these numbers
Figures come from Florida Division of Corporations filings as republished in the sneyk dataset, covering January 1, 2015 through July 31, 2026. Counts were taken on August 13, 2026. "Corporations" here means domestic profit corporations, filing type DOMP. "LLCs" means Florida limited liability companies, filing type FLAL, and excludes foreign LLCs, which are listed separately.
Counts are distinct corporations rather than filing rows, because the state's daily files overlap and some records repeat. Filings carrying a January 1 date are excluded, since that date serves as a year-known, day-unknown placeholder rather than a real filing day.
The 2026 row covers January through July only and is labelled as such in every table. It is not annualised or projected. July 2026 was fully settled at the time of measurement; Florida publishes formations on a lag, which we explain in why new business counts look low at first.
County-level data for all 67 counties is at sneyk.com/counties.
Image credits
- Aerial view of a Florida suburban community: Photo: Thomas Haney via Pexels. Free to use.
- Hands signing a printed form: Photo: danielmoyle via Flickr. CC BY 2.0.
- Miami Brickell condominium towers from the air: Photo: RealEstateImages via Wikimedia. CC0.
- Glass office tower at dusk: Photo: FOCA Stock via StockSnap. CC0.
- Empty boardroom with conference table: Photo: Pixabay via Pexels. Free to use.