Data studies / State licensing leaderboards
State licensing leaderboards: where new business licenses are being issued
Which states and license types are issuing the most new licenses, from the open state and city licensing datasets Zalwin tracks: contractors, liquor and cannabis, child care, health, vehicles and more.
Across 18 state and city licensing datasets, 18,136 new license records are dated in the 90 days from 2026-08-07 to 2026-11-05 (counting a license that appears in two datasets once).
Data as of · Updated every 6 hours as each licensing dataset refreshes; the window is the 90 days to the update date.
Key findings
- Across 18 state and city licensing datasets, 18,136 new license records are dated in the 90 days from 2026-08-07 to 2026-11-05 (counting a license that appears in two datasets once). #
- New York leads with 11,138 new license records (61.4%) across 7 dataset(s), ahead of Washington with 3,729. #
- The busiest single dataset is New Liquor & Cannabis Licenses and Pending Applications (NY, CO, OR, MO, TX), with 10,925 records in the period (most in New York); its most common license type is Bar, restaurant or venue (on-premises). #
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<iframe src="https://zalwin.com/embed/studies/state-licensing-leaderboards/by-state" width="100%" height="456" style="border:0;max-width:680px" title="New license records by state, last 90 days (tracked datasets)" loading="lazy"></iframe> <p>Source: <a href="https://zalwin.com/studies/state-licensing-leaderboards">Zalwin State licensing leaderboards</a></p>
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<iframe src="https://zalwin.com/embed/studies/state-licensing-leaderboards/by-dataset" width="100%" height="456" style="border:0;max-width:680px" title="Busiest licensing datasets, last 90 days" loading="lazy"></iframe> <p>Source: <a href="https://zalwin.com/studies/state-licensing-leaderboards">Zalwin State licensing leaderboards</a></p>
- New Liquor & Cannabis Licenses and Pending Applications (NY, CO, OR, MO, TX): 10,925
- Newly Licensed Contractors in Washington State (L&I): 5,079
- Washington L&I Contractor License Data Pulse: 2,977
- Washington L&I Contractor License Pulse: 2,356
- Newly Licensed Child Care Centers & After-School Programs (TX, NY, PA, WA, MA): 1,799
- State of Missouri Licensee Excise Tax Reported Commercial Feed: 624
- State of Colorado Liquor Licenses in Colorado Commercial Feed: 249
- New NY Car Dealers, Repair Shops & Inspection Stations (DMV): 149
- New Washington Car Dealers, Transporters & Tow Licenses: 126
- State of Delaware Delaware Business Licenses Commercial Feed: 89
- Montgomery County MD HHS - Bodyworks Licenses From July 2024 and Onwa Pulse: 73
- Illinois Professional Licensing Pulse: 41
- Montgomery County MD Door-To-Door Vendor's License Pulse: 37
- New York State Currently Licensed Real Estate Appraisers Commercial Feed: 27
- New York City License Applications Commercial Feed: 26
Licensing datasets, last 90 days
Methodology and data provenance
- Source: State and city open-data licensing portals (one per dataset; see each dataset page). 18 datasets with an issue or filing date; 2026-08-07 to 2026-11-05.
- Counts are records in each dataset whose issue or filing date falls in the window; datasets whose date column is mostly in the future (an expiry date) are left out.
- Coverage follows which jurisdictions publish open licensing data: a state ranks by the datasets tracked here, not by every license it issues.
- State totals count a license once when it appears in more than one dataset (same holder, state and date); dataset rows show each dataset’s own count.
- Organization-level records only.
- Updated every 6 hours as each licensing dataset refreshes; the window is the 90 days to the update date.
- Organization-level public records only. Informational; verify individual records at the official source.
Cite or embed this study
Zalwin, "State licensing leaderboards: where new business licenses are being issued" (data as of 2026-11-05), https://zalwin.com/studies/state-licensing-leaderboards
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