Companies in Boston: hospitals and universities at the top, 133,807 businesses underneath

This page is for anyone who needs to know which companies in Boston matter for their purpose: job seekers, people choosing a supplier or partner, analysts, and B2B sellers deciding where to focus. It starts with who employs the most people in the city, then the full business count for the metro, what those businesses do, the biggest headquarters, and the public records for finding and checking any of them.

Boston's largest employers

The City of Boston's Annual Comprehensive Financial Report for fiscal 2025 lists the city's ten principal employers, compiled by the City's Planning Department research division from hospital cost reports, federal education data, employer contacts and the Boston Business Journal:

The ten employ 98,668 people, 14.45% of the city's 682,756 jobs. State Street was fifth in 2016 with 7,500 but, the report notes, didn't provide current figures; Fidelity reports employment by state rather than by city. Mass General and the Brigham together employ 34,276 people in Boston.

How many businesses are in the Boston area

County Business Patterns (CBP), from the Census Bureau, counts every business location with paid employees. For the Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH Metro Area (CBSA 14460) in 2023:

Middlesex County, which includes Cambridge, Waltham and the Route 128 corridor, has 33.3% of the metro's establishments, twice as many as Suffolk County (Boston, Chelsea, Revere and Winthrop). Suffolk's establishments are bigger, though: 32.7 employees on average. The two New Hampshire counties add 12,995 establishments.

That's 112,192 establishments with 1 to 19 employees, 17,561 with 20 to 99 and 4,054 with 100 or more.

What Boston-area businesses do

Average pay is our calculation from CBP payroll and employees. Private educational services, mostly colleges and universities, average 72 employees per establishment, the most of any large sector. Health care and education together employ 631,696 people, 23.6% of the metro's private-sector workforce. Professional services is the largest sector by establishments and, at $153,571, one of the best paid; it includes the research labs behind the region's biotech cluster. For industry detail, see biotech companies in Boston and tech companies in Boston.

CBP counts establishments rather than companies, covers private employers only, leaves out the self-employed and measures employment in the pay period including March 12, 2023.

The biggest companies headquartered around Boston

Ranked by revenue in each company's latest annual report on Form 10-K, among SEC-registered public companies whose 10-K cover names a principal executive office in the metro:

Only three of the ten are in the city of Boston. General Electric, long the best-known Boston headquarters, now gives Evendale, Ohio as its head office in its 10-K, while its spun-off energy business, GE Vernova, is in Cambridge. Santander Holdings USA files a 10-K from Boston but is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Spain's Banco Santander, so it isn't ranked. The full list of 30 is on our largest companies in Boston page.

Finding and checking a Boston company

For the legal entity behind a business, the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth's Corporations Division keeps the state's register of corporations and LLCs, with annual reports and officers on file. To vet a supplier, confirm the entity is in good standing there, check any professional license with the relevant state board, and, if you need diverse-spend credit, confirm certification in the City's directory rather than taking the vendor's word for it.

Prospecting Boston companies

Boston's mix rewards narrow targeting. Hospitals and universities buy through formal procurement and committees; the region's research labs are smaller, faster and spread through the suburbs.

Illustrative example. The firm, prices and results are fictional; the establishment counts are from CBP.

Fresh Pond Lab Services (freshpondlab.example) maintains and certifies lab equipment such as biosafety cabinets, fume hoods and freezers.

• In Middlesex County, CBP counts 1,190 scientific research and development establishments (NAICS 5417) with 76,677 employees.
• Of these, 195 have 20 to 49 employees and 109 have 50 to 99: 304 labs big enough to need regular certification but too small to run it in-house.
• Winning 12% of them over a year at $9,000 per lab is about 36 labs and $324,000 a year.
• The buyer is the lab operations or facilities manager, with environmental health and safety signing off.

Finding which of the 304 run cell culture or vivarium work is the slow part. Bebop can search for "Middlesex County biotech labs with 20 to 99 employees that moved into new lab space in the last two years" and explain why each fits.

Subject: Biosafety cabinet certification at [Company]

Hi [first name],

Congratulations on [Company]'s move to [new site]. After a move, cabinet and hood certifications tend to come due all at once, usually in the same month as an audit.

We certify and maintain lab equipment for about 80 Middlesex County labs between 20 and 100 people, on one annual schedule with records ready for your EHS team. Could I send a quote based on your current equipment list?

[Your name], Fresh Pond Lab Services

Next step: turn these counts into a named list with how to build a prospect list.