Businesses in Georgia: 261,320 workplaces, Atlanta's headquarters and a logistics economy

This page is for anyone who needs Georgia businesses: job seekers, suppliers looking for buyers, researchers and B2B sellers covering metro Atlanta, Savannah and the rest of the state. It covers the biggest headquarters, the Census count by county and sector, the freight economy that runs through both, where to check a business, and a worked example for selling to the state's warehouses.

The biggest companies headquartered in Georgia

The 15 largest SEC-registered public companies whose latest 10-K gives a Georgia principal executive office, by revenue in that filing:

All fiscal years ended in December 2025 except Home Depot's, which ended February 1, 2026. Intercontinental Exchange's figure is total revenues, before the transaction-based expenses it deducts in its own net measure. Together the 15 reported $538.10 billion. Global Payments ($7.71 billion) comes next.

Much of these companies' workforces is outside Georgia, and some mostly outside the US: Coca-Cola reports about 8,900 of its 65,900 employees in the US, while UPS reports 370,000 of its 460,000 there. The Metro Atlanta Chamber says 29 Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 companies have headquarters or a presence in the region, and notes Assurant's move to Cobb County. For the metro itself, see companies in Atlanta.

How many businesses are in Georgia

In bands: 223,450 establishments with 1 to 19 employees, 31,216 with 20 to 99 and 6,654 with 100 or more. These are the Census Bureau's County Business Patterns (CBP) counts of locations with paid employees, across all sectors, for the pay period including March 12, 2023. They exclude the self-employed and government.

Where Georgia businesses are

Fulton County alone has 21.1% of Georgia's private jobs. The four core metro Atlanta counties (Fulton, Gwinnett, Cobb and DeKalb) hold 41.7% of establishments, and fast-growing northern suburbs such as Forsyth and Cherokee are dominated by small businesses, at about 10 employees per site. Outside the metro, Chatham (Savannah) is the largest market.

What Georgia businesses do

Average pay and employees per site are our calculations from CBP payroll and counts. Transportation and warehousing has only 9,385 establishments but 319,353 jobs, 7.25% of the state's total against 4.68% across the US, and its sites average 34.0 employees. Warehousing and storage alone had 1,037 establishments and 108,795 employees, a figure the Census Bureau flags as moderately affected by the noise it adds for confidentiality. Management of companies, the Census category for head offices, employs 2.91% of Georgia's workers, slightly above the national 2.76%.

How to look up a Georgia business

The Secretary of State's search is the first check on any Georgia company: confirm the legal name, that the entity is active and current on its annual registration, and who its registered agent is.

Prospecting Georgia's warehouses and freight terminals

Distribution centers and truck terminals buy maintenance and equipment services constantly: dock doors and levelers, forklifts, racking inspections, conveyors and fire protection. The site general manager or maintenance manager usually decides, within budgets set regionally.

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

Peach State Dock & Door (peachstatedock.example) repairs and services loading dock equipment.

• Warehousing and storage establishments with 50 or more employees in Georgia: 103 + 92 + 37 + 23 + 17 = 272.
• General freight trucking establishments with 50 to 999 employees add 121 + 69 + 26 + 5 = 221 (the 1,000-plus band isn't published).
• It assumes 60% are within its service areas around Atlanta and Savannah: about 296 sites.
• Signing 5% a year to preventive maintenance contracts would add about 15 sites.

It targets maintenance managers and site general managers, and times outreach to the end of the summer peak and before the holiday shipping season, when a broken door costs the most. Sorting which of 296 sites are owner-operated and which are run by third-party logistics firms with national contracts is the research Bebop does for each account.

Subject: Dock doors at [site] before peak

Hi [first name],

A dock door or leveler that fails in November usually means a trailer you can't unload and a repair crew you can't get for three days.

We service dock equipment at distribution centers from [Savannah / McDonough / Fairburn] with a 24-hour response and a preventive maintenance visit each quarter. Could I send a quote for [site]'s doors and levelers ahead of peak?

[Your name], Peach State Dock & Door

Next step: go deeper on the state's freight sector in trucking companies in Georgia.