Businesses in Detroit: the city's top employers, 27 public headquarters and 102,430 workplaces

This page is for people searching for businesses in Detroit: job seekers, suppliers, researchers, companies weighing a move and B2B sellers building a territory. "Detroit" means two markets here, so the page covers both. The employer ranking is for the city itself; the headquarters, private companies and Census counts cover the six-county Detroit-Warren-Dearborn metro. For Michigan as a whole, see companies in Michigan.

The largest employers in the city of Detroit

The City of Detroit publishes a principal employers schedule (Schedule 15) in its Annual Comprehensive Financial Report. The fiscal 2025 report, released in December 2025, lists the top ten for 2024 against 2016:

The schedule's figures come from Crain's Detroit Business's July 2024 largest-employers list and cover Detroit plus the enclave cities of Hamtramck and Highland Park; the city says 2025 figures weren't available when the report went to press. Total city employment was 233,767, from the state's Michigan Center for Data and Analytics.

Three changes stand out. General Motors, sixth in 2016 with 7,371, has dropped out of the top ten even though its head office is downtown; Stellantis rose from ninth to third; and the Detroit Medical Center fell from second to eighth. For the 11-county region, the Detroit Regional Partnership's undated list is led by Ford (47,750), Henry Ford Health (44,561) and GM (34,454).

The public companies headquartered in metro Detroit

Twenty-seven SEC-registered companies with more than $500 million of revenue give a principal executive office in the metro on the cover of their latest 10-K:

Revenue is as reported. Ally's is its net revenue: net financing revenue and other interest income ($6.18 billion) plus other revenue ($1.74 billion). American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings changed its name to Dauch Corporation on 26 January 2026. Together the 27 reported $524.9 billion, and Ford and GM 70.9% of it. Ten are automakers or parts suppliers, and three more (Penske, Ally and Credit Acceptance) sell or finance cars.

The headquarters split by county: Oakland has 15, from Southfield and Troy to Auburn Hills and Pontiac; Wayne has 11, including the six in the city of Detroit; and Macomb has one. The Detroit Regional Chamber's 2025 Fortune 500 table lists nine companies from the region; eight are above, and the ninth, Autoliv of Auburn Hills, gives Stockholm as its principal executive office in its 10-K. Stellantis files a Form 20-F as a Dutch company, so it can't appear here despite its Detroit plants.

The largest private companies

Private companies don't file 10-Ks. The Detroit Regional Chamber republishes Crain's Detroit Business's ranking of the region's largest private companies by 2024 revenue:

Two of the ten, Walbridge and Barton Malow, are construction firms; see construction companies in Detroit for that market.

How many businesses are in metro Detroit

The Detroit-Warren-Dearborn metro had 102,430 establishments in 2023, 1.23% of the 8,361,342 in the US. They employed 1,846,717 people and paid $125,998,297,000 in wages: 18.0 employees per establishment and $68,228 a year on average.

In bands: 86,498 establishments with 1 to 19 employees, 13,066 with 20 to 99 and 2,866 with 100 or more. County Business Patterns (CBP) counts locations with paid employees rather than companies, excludes the self-employed and measures employment in the pay period including March 12, 2023. The Census figures are for counties, so the city of Detroit is counted within Wayne County.

The car industry in the Census data

Average pay is our calculation from CBP payroll; the engineering and hospital totals carry the Census Bureau's moderate-noise flag. The car industry reaches well beyond the plants: engineering firms, R&D labs and corporate offices together employ about 151,000 people at average pay above $108,000. Across all sectors, health care employs the most (293,543), then manufacturing (240,214) and professional services (221,378, at $104,539 average pay).

Checking a Detroit business

In Michigan, assumed names and co-partnerships are registered with the clerk of the county where the business is, while corporations and LLCs file with the state. A supplier trading under a name that isn't its legal one may only show up at the county, so check Oakland and Macomb as well as Wayne.

Prospecting Detroit's parts plants

The metro's buyers fall into three groups that buy very differently: the automakers and Tier 1 suppliers, which buy through supplier portals, quality certification and multi-year sourcing decisions; the hospital systems and public employers that top the city list, which buy through formal procurement; and the 99,564 establishments with fewer than 100 employees, which buy like any other small or midsize business.

Illustrative example. The company, prices and results are fictional; the plant counts are from the Census data above.

Rouge Vision (rougevision.example) sells camera-based inspection for stamping and assembly lines.

• Motor vehicle parts establishments in the metro: 433.
• Those with 100 to 999 employees, big enough to run several lines but not so big that sourcing is decided overseas: 65 + 48 + 24 = 137.
• At an assumed 8% win rate over two years, that's 11 plants; at $90,000 for a first line, $990,000 of first-year business, before expansion to more lines.
• It targets the plant quality manager and the manufacturing engineering lead, and times outreach to new program launches and customer quality alerts, when a plant has to prove it can catch defects.

Knowing which of 137 plants supply which vehicle programs is the research that takes the time; Bebop does it for each plant on the list.

Subject: Catching [defect type] before it ships from [Plant]

Hi [first name],

Most plants your size find out about a dimensional or surface defect from the customer's quality alert, after parts have shipped.

We install camera inspection at the end of a stamping or assembly line in a weekend and flag defects in real time, with images your team can attach to a corrective action. Would it help to see the results from a line like yours in Macomb County?

[Your name], Rouge Vision

Next step: see how Michigan's largest companies rank statewide in the largest companies in Michigan.