Montana saw a record number of business starts in 2025 – MTPR

More than 60,000 new businesses were created in Montana in 2024, setting a new state record. That’s according to a report released last week by the Montana Secretary of State.
2024 marks the fourth consecutive year Montana broke records for new businesses. But just looking at new registrations doesn’t give a complete picture of the business environment, according to Jeff Michael, director of the Bureau of Business and Economic Research at the University of Montana.
“Because you can look at the same report and you see record levels of business inactivations in 2024 as well. So you know there’s a lot of transactional activity going on in both the opening and the closing side.”
Michael says that can indicate administrative action more than real economic activity. A better bellwether, according to Michael, is the number of businesses in good standing — those are the active, operating businesses in Montana.
In 2024 that number was more than 324,000 — another state record. Michael says that reflects a regulatory environment that makes it cheap and easy to start a small business.
“When you see 324,000 businesses in good standing in a state this size, clearly there’s a lot of side hustles involved in that,” Michael says. “Nevertheless, it’s an important part of the fabric and some of those side hustles grow into larger businesses.”
The Kalispell area had an outsized impact in the report, with the most new businesses and inactivations of any Montana zip code.

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