Companies in Delaware: 2.29 million registered entities, 29,706 real workplaces, and how to tell them apart

This page is for two kinds of reader. Some want companies physically in Delaware: employers, suppliers and customers in Wilmington, Dover or the beach towns. Others want to understand Delaware companies, the entities formed under Delaware law wherever they operate, often because they're checking a counterparty or forming one. It covers both, with the official figures for each.

Incorporated in Delaware versus based in Delaware

That's 77 registered entities for every workplace with employees. Companies form in Delaware for its corporate law, its Court of Chancery and the Division's fast filings, which is how the annual report explains it, and then operate wherever their business is. A "Delaware company" in a contract or a news story usually means a Delaware-incorporated entity, not one with an office in the state.

The register by entity type:

All of this is a large business for the state. The Division of Corporations reported $2,050.4 million of general fund revenue in fiscal 2025, of which $1,846.5 million was net business entity taxes.

How to look up a Delaware entity

The Division of Corporations' entity search is free for the basics: the entity's name, file number, formation date and registered agent. It returns active and inactive entities and, as the page warns, the result is not an indication of current status. A certificate of status (good standing) and copies of filings cost a fee, ordered through the Division's certificate service or a Delaware online agent. The registered agent shown is often a commercial registered agent, whose address tells you nothing about where the company works.

To find where a Delaware-incorporated company actually operates, check its registration as a foreign entity in the state where it does business, or for public companies the principal executive office on the 10-K cover.

Public companies headquartered in Delaware

The largest SEC-registered public companies whose latest 10-K gives a Delaware principal executive office, by revenue in that filing:

Two banks are also headquartered here but report interest income rather than a revenue total: SLM Corp (Sallie Mae) in Newark, with about 1,788 team members, and WSFS Financial in Wilmington. Marvell's 10-K gives Wilmington as its principal executive office while noting buildings it owns or operates in Santa Clara, California. DuPont completed the separation of Qnity, its electronics business, on November 1, 2025.

Below these, the SEC's list of Delaware-addressed public companies quickly turns into small companies reporting little or no revenue. For the wider region, including the Wilmington suburbs in Pennsylvania, see companies in Philadelphia.

Delaware's major employers

The Delaware Prosperity Partnership, the state's economic development organization, names its major employers without ranking them or giving headcounts: Bank of America, Bayhealth, JPMorgan Chase, Mountaire, Nemours, Perdue Farms and the University of Delaware, with DuPont and Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield also mentioned. Banks, health systems and poultry processors make up most of the list, which matches the Census data below.

How many businesses are in Delaware

In bands: 25,503 establishments with 1 to 19 employees, 3,549 with 20 to 99 and 654 with 100 or more. County Business Patterns (CBP) counts locations with paid employees across all sectors, excludes the self-employed and government, and measures employment in the pay period including March 12, 2023.

Another 469 establishments with 11,271 employees are reported statewide without a county.

Average pay is our calculation from CBP payroll. Finance and insurance employs 10.0% of CBP workers, against 5.0% nationally, and banks and other lenders run large sites: 22 credit intermediation establishments have 500 or more employees. Management of companies is small and odd: 412 of its 519 establishments have fewer than five employees, consistent with holding companies that need a Delaware presence but little staff.

Prospecting Delaware's large office sites

Delaware's big private workplaces are mostly bank, card and professional services offices in New Castle County. They buy facilities services, food service, security and IT support through a site or regional facilities manager.

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

Brandywine Facility Services (brandywinefs.example) cleans and maintains large offices.

• Finance and insurance establishments with 100 or more employees: 32 + 11 + 19 + 6 = 68.
• Professional services adds 41 + 11 + 3 = 55 (the 500 to 999 band isn't published).
• It assumes 80% are in New Castle County, within its service area: about 98 sites.
• Winning five a year at an average of $180,000 would add $900,000 in annual contracts.

It targets the workplace or facilities manager at each site, and times outreach to the end of a cleaning contract, often three years. Working out which of those 98 sites are run locally and which by a national facilities contract is research Bebop can do for each one.

Subject: Cleaning at [Company]'s [building] site

Hi [first name],

Most large offices in New Castle County are cleaned under a regional contract run from Philadelphia or New York, which is why the same problems come back every quarter.

We clean and maintain offices of 100 to 2,000 people in Wilmington and Newark, with a site supervisor who's there every night. Could I walk the building with you and quote against your current scope?

[Your name], Brandywine Facility Services

Next step: see how to check a company's details in how to find a company's employee count.