Companies in Charleston, SC: the largest employers, three public headquarters and 22,892 businesses

This page is for people looking for companies in Charleston, South Carolina: job seekers, companies relocating or hunting for local suppliers, researchers and B2B sellers sizing up the Lowcountry. It starts with who employs the most people, then the public companies based here, then the full market from Census data, the records for checking a business, and a worked example for selling to the region's manufacturers.

Charleston's largest employers

Charleston County publishes a principal employers schedule in its Annual Comprehensive Financial Report. The report for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2025, built from Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce, Charleston Regional Development Alliance and SC Department of Employment and Workforce data, lists:

The ten employ 80,553 people, 34.63% of the county's 232,420 jobs. Since 2016, MUSC has added 4,000 and Roper St. Francis 1,600, while the College of Charleston, the City of Charleston and Kiawah Island Golf Resort have dropped out of the top ten. Four of the ten are government bodies and four are in health care.

Public companies headquartered in Charleston

Charleston has fewer public headquarters than its size suggests. These are the SEC-registered companies whose latest 10-K gives a head office in the metro:

A blank employee cell means we didn't take a headcount from that filing. All three have calendar fiscal years. HireQuest's revenue is mostly royalties from franchised offices, so it understates the size of the staffing business that runs under its brands. One other SEC filer, Strategic Acquisitions, gives a Mount Pleasant address but reported no revenue in 2025. Boeing, Volvo Cars, Mercedes-Benz Vans and Bosch run large plants in the region, but none is headquartered here, so their local results aren't reported separately.

How many businesses are in Charleston

The Census Bureau's County Business Patterns (CBP) counts locations with paid employees. For the Charleston-North Charleston, SC Metro Area (CBSA 16700) in 2023:

In bands: 19,526 establishments have 1 to 19 employees, 2,909 have 20 to 99 and 457 have 100 or more. CBP covers private employers and leaves out most government workers, which is why Joint Base Charleston and MUSC, with 41,900 people between them, aren't in these figures. It also counts locations rather than companies and excludes the self-employed.

What Charleston businesses do

Average pay is our calculation from CBP payroll. Tourism shows in the jobs: hotels and restaurants employ 15.1% of the metro's private workforce, more than health care. Manufacturing is the other way round, with few sites and large ones: 546 establishments average 54.7 employees, and 4 of the metro's 14 private workplaces with 1,000 or more employees are factories. Transportation equipment makers alone (NAICS 336, which covers aircraft and vehicle assembly) employ 12,978 people at 38 establishments. Finance and insurance is small here, 2.7% of jobs, but pays the most.

Finding and checking a Charleston company

Berkeley and Dorchester counties license businesses in their unincorporated areas too, and towns such as Mount Pleasant and North Charleston issue their own licenses, so check the license where the business actually operates. For statewide context, see companies in South Carolina.

Prospecting Charleston's manufacturers

Charleston's factories are few enough to research one by one. The plants run by Boeing, Volvo and Mercedes-Benz Vans buy through global procurement, but the mid-sized manufacturers and suppliers around them make decisions locally, usually through a plant manager and a maintenance or quality lead.

Illustrative example. The company, rates and results are fictional, to show the method.

Cooper River Calibration (cooperrivercal.example) calibrates gauges, torque tools and test equipment on site and wants Charleston-area manufacturers with 50 to 499 employees.

• Manufacturing establishments with 50 to 99 employees: 35; 100 to 249: 29; 250 to 499: 15. That's 79 plants.
• It assumes plants in aerospace and automotive supply chains, which audit calibration records, make up about half: roughly 40 priority accounts.
• Three new contracts at $60,000 a year would add $180,000 in recurring revenue.

It targets quality managers first, because they own audit findings, and times outreach to the weeks before a customer or registrar audit. Finding which of 79 plants supply aerospace or automotive programs, and who runs quality at each, is the research Bebop does for each account.

Subject: Calibration records before [Company]'s next audit

Hi [first name],

Out-of-date calibration records are one of the most common findings in supplier audits, and they're the easiest to prevent.

We calibrate gauges, torque tools and test equipment on site at plants in Berkeley, Charleston and Dorchester counties, and hand back records your auditor can read in one sitting. Could I send a sample certificate and our turnaround times?

[Your name], Cooper River Calibration

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