Only about half of U.S. business owners view their city or local area positively as a place to operate, according to new Gallup research that puts customer access, business support networks, regulation and government services ahead of taxes and real estate costs in explaining whether owners are satisfied.
The findings carry particular relevance in New York, where separate state research released this year found business owners were more likely than their counterparts elsewhere to identify state business taxes, government regulations and electricity costs as significant concerns. New York also has hundreds of thousands of small businesses operating within a system of state and local taxes, licensing requirements and municipal rules that can differ considerably from one community to another.
Gallup found 48% of business owners nationwide were satisfied with their local area as a place to run a business, while 13% were dissatisfied and 39% were neutral. Although only 5% said they were likely to leave their area within the next year for a business-related reason, that figure rose sharply among owners unhappy with the local business climate.
The research is part of Gallup’s Pathways to Wealth project, supported by JPMorganChase and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. The latest survey was conducted from Sept. 26 through Nov. 3, 2025, primarily using business owners recruited through the probability-based Gallup Panel.
What business owners dislike most
Gallup asked owners to evaluate 11 aspects of doing business in their city or local market.
Real estate costs received the most negative assessment. Forty-two percent of owners agreed commercial and residential real estate costs discourage business development, while 14% disagreed and the remainder were neutral.
State and local taxes were another major source of concern. Thirty-five percent of owners said tax rates were too high to support business growth, compared with 18% who disagreed.
Those findings are especially notable in New York, where taxation remains a recurring concern among business owners.
A March report from state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s office found three concerns were more prevalent among surveyed New York small-business owners than among owners elsewhere in the country: state taxes on business income, what respondents characterized as unreasonable government regulations and electricity costs.
The comptroller’s findings were based on responses from 285 New York small-business owners.
New York’s corporate tax structure varies by type and size of business. For tax years through 2026, the state’s business income tax rate is 6.5% for qualifying small businesses, while certain larger corporate taxpayers face a 7.25% rate. Different tax structures apply to S corporations, pass-through businesses and businesses operating in New York City or the Metropolitan Commuter Transportation District.
That means Gallup’s national finding about dissatisfaction with taxes doesn’t translate into a single New York business experience. The burden can vary significantly depending on business structure, income, location and local tax obligations.
Taxes matter, but Gallup found other factors matter more
One of the more significant findings in the Gallup study is that the issues business owners complain about most aren’t necessarily the strongest predictors of whether they like doing business in a particular community.
Although real estate prices and taxes received some of the worst ratings, Gallup found they were among the least predictive factors in determining owners’ overall satisfaction with their local business environment.
Instead, access to customers and markets showed a stronger relationship with satisfaction.
Forty-three percent of business owners said their area provided good access to customers and markets. Thirty-four percent said their community offered useful business-to-business support services, while 31% said they had good access to professional service providers.
Gallup’s analysis found access to customers, business-to-business support networks such as chambers of commerce, nonprofit business-support organizations, regulation and the quality of government services were among the characteristics most closely associated with overall satisfaction.
That distinction has practical implications for New York communities because many of those conditions are shaped at least partly at the local level.
A business owner may face statewide tax rules, but the experience of opening, expanding or operating a business can also depend on zoning, permitting, inspections, municipal services, infrastructure and relationships with local economic-development organizations.
The comptroller’s office similarly noted earlier this year that local requirements can affect New York businesses in addition to state regulation. Its report pointed to New York City as an example, where one-third of surveyed small businesses reported waiting at least six months to open because of licenses, permits or waivers that can involve numerous city agencies.
Dissatisfied owners are more likely to consider leaving
Gallup also examined whether owners were considering moving their businesses for economic reasons.
Overall, 5% said they were likely to leave their city or local area within the following 12 months.
Among owners who held a negative view of their local business environment, 11% said they were likely to relocate — more than twice the rate among owners who weren’t dissatisfied.
The likelihood climbed further among businesses that were both growing and unhappy with their location.
Among owners who expected their 2025 revenue to exceed 2024 levels and were dissatisfied with their local area, 19% said they were likely to relocate.
By comparison, just 5% of owners expecting revenue growth who were satisfied or neutral about their local area said they were likely to leave. Among dissatisfied owners who did not expect revenue growth, 9% said they were considering relocation.
Gallup cautioned that those relationships are associations and don’t establish that dissatisfaction causes businesses to move.
Still, the findings suggest communities may face greater risk of losing businesses that have enough momentum and financial capacity to consider operating elsewhere.
Why that matters for New York communities
The question is significant for New York because locally owned businesses play a substantial role in employment, tax collections and commercial activity throughout the state, including in smaller cities, villages and rural communities across the Finger Lakes.
New York’s economy also contains a large and growing number of businesses without employees. The state comptroller reported this year that non-employer businesses have continued to increase even as net small-business job creation has weakened.
At the same time, consumer activity remains an important source of local government revenue.
Local sales tax collections across New York totaled $12.7 billion during the first six months of 2026, up 6.8%, or $803 million, from the same period a year earlier, according to the state comptroller. Every region of the state recorded an increase.
Those collections aren’t a direct measure of small-business health, and the comptroller cautioned that part of the increase reflected higher prices for goods and services. But they illustrate the financial relationship between commercial activity and municipal finances.
In 2025, more than 562,000 businesses collected about $20 billion in New York state sales and use taxes, according to the state Department of Taxation and Finance. Retail trade represented the largest share of taxable sales, followed by services and restaurants.
For local governments, losing a successful business can therefore mean more than an empty storefront. Depending on the business, it can affect employment, taxable sales, commercial property use and the network of services available to residents.
Local policy may have more influence than taxes alone
Gallup’s findings suggest local economic-development strategies centered only on tax incentives may miss other factors that business owners consider important.
The study found stronger connections between owner satisfaction and conditions such as customer access, support networks and regulatory environment.
That could include whether businesses can reach customers, obtain professional services, work with other local companies, navigate municipal requirements and receive reliable public services.
Those issues are particularly relevant in New York because municipalities have substantial authority over zoning, land use, permitting and some aspects of business development.
Communities also differ significantly in the resources they offer. Some maintain active chambers of commerce, downtown organizations, industrial development agencies or local development corporations, while businesses elsewhere may have fewer formal support systems.
Gallup didn’t rank New York or individual communities in the study, so the findings can’t be used to say whether business owners in the Finger Lakes are more or less satisfied than owners nationally.
They instead provide a national measure of which local conditions appear most closely associated with how owners view the places where they operate.
What the research does — and doesn’t — show
The Gallup survey measures business owners’ perceptions, not an objective ranking of local economies.
An owner who believes taxes are too high or regulations are unfriendly is reporting a perception of the local business environment. The study doesn’t independently determine whether those taxes or regulations are economically excessive.
Gallup also stressed that its statistical relationships don’t establish causation.
A community with strong customer access, support organizations and business-friendly regulations may have more satisfied owners, but other factors not measured in the survey could also explain the relationship.
Similarly, an owner’s stated intention to relocate doesn’t mean that business ultimately moved.
Even with those limitations, the findings point toward a broader lesson for communities competing to retain businesses: owners appear to judge a location based on a combination of market opportunity, government interaction and the broader network around them, rather than simply the tax bill.
For New York municipalities, that means some of the conditions most closely associated with business satisfaction may be areas local officials and economic-development organizations can directly influence, even when broader state tax policy remains outside their control.
FingerLakes1.com is the region’s leading all-digital news publication. The company was founded in 1998 and has been keeping residents informed for more than two decades. Have a lead? Send it to news@fingerlakes1.com.