Companies in Louisiana: 14 public headquarters, the parishes and 108,561 businesses

This page is for anyone who needs to find or size Louisiana companies: buyers looking for suppliers, job seekers, analysts and B2B sellers planning a Gulf Coast territory. It covers the public companies headquartered in the state, what the largest employer lists show, the Census count of businesses by parish and industry, the registries for checking a Louisiana business, and a worked example in industrial construction.

Public companies headquartered in Louisiana

Ranked by revenue in each company's latest 10-K, with the head office from its cover page:

For the banks, revenue is net interest income plus noninterest income, not gross interest income. Entergy's figure is for the whole group, which runs utilities in Arkansas, Mississippi and Texas as well as Louisiana; its subsidiaries employed 12,233 people at the end of 2025. Lumen's headcount is company-wide, including about 3,400 outside the US.

Some names are left out on purpose:

Who employs the most people

We didn't find a current statewide ranked list from a Louisiana state agency, so the most useful published list is local. Lafayette Consolidated Government's financial report for the year ended October 31, 2025, using figures from the Lafayette Economic Development Authority, lists:

The ten employ 27,587 people, 20.11% of Lafayette's employment by the report's measure. Two hospital systems and a university lead, which matches the statewide Census picture below. Island Operating Company, an offshore oil and gas services contractor, was on the 2016 list and isn't now.

How many businesses are in Louisiana

The Census Bureau's County Business Patterns (CBP) counts locations with paid employees. Louisiana's county-level units are parishes. For 2023:

In bands: 92,003 establishments have 1 to 19 employees, 14,068 have 20 to 99 and 2,490 have 100 or more. The five largest parishes hold 46.3% of establishments. Ascension Parish, between Baton Rouge and New Orleans on the Mississippi River's chemical corridor, has the highest average pay of the eight. Average pay is our calculation from CBP payroll. CBP counts locations rather than companies and leaves out the self-employed and government.

What Louisiana businesses do

Health care is Louisiana's biggest private employer by far. Construction is the surprise: 14 construction establishments have 1,000 or more employees, more than in manufacturing (7), because heavy industrial work is done by large contractors. Utility system construction, which includes pipeline and plant work (NAICS 2371), employs 50,177 people at 408 establishments, 7 of them with 1,000 or more. Chemical manufacturing (NAICS 325) has 235 plants with 25,560 employees and average pay of $129,552. The Census Bureau flags the pipeline construction and chemical employment figures as moderately affected by its confidentiality noise. The employment figure for petroleum refineries (NAICS 324, 57 establishments) is not reported here because the Census Bureau flags it as high-noise: its confidentiality noise changed the value by 5% or more. Support activities for oil and gas employ 29,021 at 851 establishments.

How to look up a Louisiana business

Check the contractor board before hiring anyone for commercial or industrial work; Louisiana licenses commercial contractors at the state level. For the industry in detail, see construction companies in Louisiana.

Prospecting Louisiana's industrial contractors

The contractors that build and maintain refineries, chemical plants and pipelines are some of the largest private employers in the state, and they buy safety, equipment and workforce services on tight schedules around plant turnarounds.

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

Atchafalaya Lift Inspections (atchafalayalift.example) inspects and certifies cranes and rigging for contractors and wants Louisiana heavy and civil engineering contractors with 50 or more employees.

• Heavy and civil engineering establishments (NAICS 237) with 50 to 99 employees: 65; 100 to 249: 42; 250 to 499: 16; 500 to 999: 6; 1,000 or more: 7. That's 136 sites.
• It assumes 60% run their own crane fleets: about 80 prospects.
• Ten fleet contracts at $40,000 a year would be $400,000.

It targets the equipment manager and the HSE manager, and times outreach to the months before spring and fall turnaround seasons, when owners audit contractor equipment records. Finding which of 136 contractors run their own cranes, and who signs off on inspections, is the research Bebop does for each account.

Subject: Crane certifications before [Company]'s next turnaround

Hi [first name],

Plant owners on the river are asking for crane and rigging inspection records before contractors mobilize, and a missing certificate can hold a crew at the gate.

We inspect and certify crane fleets across the Baton Rouge and Lake Charles corridors, on your schedule, with records your client's safety team can check in minutes. Could I send our pre-turnaround checklist?

[Your name], Atchafalaya Lift Inspections

Next step: see the industry behind many of these contractors in oil and gas companies in Louisiana.