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Food trucks live and die on local market structure: how many mobile food operations already work your metros, what staff cost, and whether the local economy is minting new customers and events. Mobile-food density spans 2 operations per 100,000 residents in Illinois to 14 in Alaska — and the states topping this list pair thin competition with fast business formation.
Every state is scored on four federal measures: mobile food service density, average payroll per operation, food-service labor cost, and the state’s overall new-business momentum over the last twelve months of Census formation data.
The Top 10 States
| Rank | State | Establishments | Firms per 100k | Payroll per firm | Pay per employee | New biz apps per 1k* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Oklahoma | 144 | 3.5 | $103k | $11,977 | 16.9 |
| 2 | Georgia | 216 | 1.9 | $73k | $21,927 | 24.8 |
| 3 | Arizona | 297 | 3.9 | $96k | $21,389 | 20.4 |
| 4 | Louisiana | 107 | 2.3 | $74k | $17,492 | 17.7 |
| 5 | Delaware* | 42 | 4.0 | $64k | $24,473 | 58.0 |
| 6 | District of Columbia† | 13 | 1.9 | $85k | $32,353 | 22.5 |
| 7 | Florida | 1,151 | 4.9 | $66k | $24,765 | 30.3 |
| 8 | Nevada | 147 | 4.5 | $82k | $22,873 | 21.1 |
| 9 | Mississippi | 54 | 1.8 | $35k | $13,993 | 20.9 |
| 10 | California | 1,329 | 3.4 | $112k | $30,953 | 15.3 |
Deep-dive guides for the leaders: how to start in Oklahoma · how to start in Georgia · how to start in Arizona · how to start in Louisiana · how to start in Delaware.
How We Ranked the States
Each state is scored on four factors, standardized as z-scores and weighted. Higher is better for revenue and momentum; lower is better for competition and labor cost.
- Market saturation (30%) — establishments per 100,000 residents in NAICS 722330 (Mobile Food Services), U.S. Census Bureau County Business Patterns, 2023. Fewer competitors per capita scores higher.
- Payroll per establishment (25%) — annual payroll divided by establishment count, same source. A proxy for how much paid work the average firm supports.
- Labor cost (20%) — annual payroll per employee in the industry, same source. Cheaper labor scores higher for a new owner-operator.
- New-business momentum (25%) — business applications per 1,000 residents, Aug-2025 through Jul-2026, U.S. Census Bureau Business Formation Statistics. Values are capped at the 5th–95th percentile before scoring (see footnotes).
Population denominators use Census Bureau 2024 state population estimates. The weights are editorial judgment — we publish every underlying number in the table so you can re-rank by whichever factor matters most to your food truck.
Footnotes: *Wyoming and Delaware business-application counts are heavily inflated by non-resident LLC filings routed through registered agents; we cap their momentum factor before scoring and show the raw number in the table. †District of Columbia is a city-scale market and behaves unlike full states on density and payroll measures.
All 51 States and DC, Ranked
| Rank | State | Establishments | Firms per 100k | Payroll per firm | Pay per employee | New biz apps per 1k* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Oklahoma | 144 | 3.5 | $103k | $11,977 | 16.9 |
| 2 | Georgia | 216 | 1.9 | $73k | $21,927 | 24.8 |
| 3 | Arizona | 297 | 3.9 | $96k | $21,389 | 20.4 |
| 4 | Louisiana | 107 | 2.3 | $74k | $17,492 | 17.7 |
| 5 | Delaware* | 42 | 4.0 | $64k | $24,473 | 58.0 |
| 6 | District of Columbia† | 13 | 1.9 | $85k | $32,353 | 22.5 |
| 7 | Florida | 1,151 | 4.9 | $66k | $24,765 | 30.3 |
| 8 | Nevada | 147 | 4.5 | $82k | $22,873 | 21.1 |
| 9 | Mississippi | 54 | 1.8 | $35k | $13,993 | 20.9 |
| 10 | California | 1,329 | 3.4 | $112k | $30,953 | 15.3 |
| 11 | Kentucky | 111 | 2.4 | $79k | $24,291 | 16.6 |
| 12 | New Jersey | 232 | 2.4 | $74k | $25,212 | 18.2 |
| 13 | Alabama | 126 | 2.4 | $63k | $15,998 | 15.0 |
| 14 | Texas | 1,140 | 3.6 | $78k | $24,433 | 18.8 |
| 15 | Maryland | 178 | 2.8 | $84k | $27,912 | 17.3 |
| 16 | Colorado | 407 | 6.8 | $86k | $31,125 | 27.5 |
| 17 | North Carolina | 367 | 3.3 | $71k | $22,855 | 17.9 |
| 18 | Ohio | 359 | 3.0 | $90k | $28,182 | 15.5 |
| 19 | Utah | 220 | 6.3 | $60k | $18,191 | 23.8 |
| 20 | New Mexico | 112 | 5.3 | $78k | $23,652 | 20.5 |
| 21 | South Carolina | 177 | 3.2 | $64k | $22,767 | 18.7 |
| 22 | Wyoming* | 46 | 7.8 | $56k | $20,457 | 145.0 |
| 23 | Tennessee | 274 | 3.8 | $76k | $22,452 | 15.9 |
| 24 | Washington | 411 | 5.2 | $116k | $32,956 | 14.7 |
| 25 | Illinois | 229 | 1.8 | $72k | $28,351 | 15.6 |
| 26 | Virginia | 339 | 3.9 | $74k | $24,818 | 16.9 |
| 27 | Indiana | 179 | 2.6 | $66k | $22,668 | 14.2 |
| 28 | South Dakota | 33 | 3.6 | $47k | $12,520 | 14.3 |
| 29 | Massachusetts | 274 | 3.8 | $103k | $30,356 | 11.9 |
| 30 | West Virginia | 38 | 2.1 | $53k | $15,252 | 10.4 |
| 31 | Michigan | 251 | 2.5 | $65k | $27,328 | 16.5 |
| 32 | Missouri | 224 | 3.6 | $72k | $30,392 | 18.5 |
| 33 | Pennsylvania | 363 | 2.8 | $73k | $25,939 | 12.8 |
| 34 | Connecticut | 114 | 3.1 | $74k | $29,858 | 14.8 |
| 35 | Kansas | 93 | 3.1 | $58k | $24,287 | 14.4 |
| 36 | New York | 632 | 3.2 | $59k | $29,492 | 16.2 |
| 37 | North Dakota | 32 | 4.0 | $63k | $22,697 | 12.2 |
| 38 | Wisconsin | 161 | 2.7 | $58k | $27,110 | 13.3 |
| 39 | Montana | 107 | 9.4 | $45k | $23,921 | 28.4 |
| 40 | Iowa | 91 | 2.8 | $60k | $26,019 | 11.6 |
| 41 | Nebraska | 81 | 4.0 | $51k | $20,510 | 12.1 |
| 42 | Arkansas | 166 | 5.4 | $62k | $24,587 | 14.6 |
| 43 | Minnesota | 233 | 4.0 | $75k | $36,103 | 13.2 |
| 44 | Rhode Island | 41 | 3.7 | $59k | $29,169 | 11.3 |
| 45 | Hawaii | 178 | 12.3 | $108k | $24,658 | 12.9 |
| 46 | Idaho | 191 | 9.5 | $63k | $24,913 | 18.2 |
| 47 | Oregon | 498 | 11.7 | $104k | $29,525 | 14.9 |
| 48 | Vermont | 47 | 7.2 | $51k | $24,306 | 12.8 |
| 49 | New Hampshire | 39 | 2.8 | $29k | $33,059 | 14.0 |
| 50 | Alaska | 101 | 13.7 | $77k | $29,625 | 17.2 |
| 51 | Maine | 92 | 6.5 | $63k | $42,482 | 10.7 |
What the Numbers Don’t Capture
No dataset measures licensing difficulty, insurance mandates, or fee structures — and those vary enormously by state. Our state-by-state guides cover exactly that layer: click any state in the table for its full startup walkthrough, or see the overall Best States to Start a Business index and the monthly business formation statistics this index draws on.
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Wherever you land, the first filing is the same
Every state on this list starts a food truck the same way: form the business entity. Bizee files your LLC — you pick the package and pay the state fee in any of the 51 jurisdictions ranked here.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best state to start a food truck in 2026?
By our four-factor Census-data index, the top five are Oklahoma (#1), Georgia (#2), Arizona (#3), Louisiana (#4), Delaware (#5). Oklahoma leads on the combination of market saturation, payroll per firm, labor cost, and new-business momentum.
Which state has the least food truck competition?
Illinois has the thinnest market, with 1.8 establishments per 100,000 residents in NAICS 722330 — versus 13.7 in Alaska, the most saturated.
Where does this data come from?
Every number is from the U.S. Census Bureau: County Business Patterns 2023 for establishments, employment, and payroll; Business Formation Statistics (Aug-2025 through Jul-2026) for new business applications; and 2024 population estimates for per-capita rates.
Sources
| Data | Source | Vintage |
|---|---|---|
| Establishments, employment, payroll by industry and state | U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns | 2023 |
| Business applications by state | U.S. Census Bureau, Business Formation Statistics | Aug-2025 through Jul-2026 |
| State population | U.S. Census Bureau, Population Estimates (NST-EST2024) | 2024 |