Companies in Miami: 98,394 businesses, three cruise lines and a county of small firms

This page is for anyone trying to get a handle on the companies in Miami: people hunting for a supplier or partner, job seekers, investors, and B2B sellers deciding which part of the market to work. "Miami" here means Miami-Dade County, which includes the City of Miami, Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Doral and Hialeah; where the wider metro matters, we say so.

How many businesses are in Miami

The Census Bureau's County Business Patterns (CBP) for Miami-Dade County, Florida, all sectors, 2023:

The Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metro, which adds Broward and Palm Beach counties, had 222,388 establishments, so Miami-Dade is 44.2% of the metro.

That's 89,162 establishments with 1 to 19 employees, 7,660 with 20 to 99 and 1,572 with 100 or more. More than two in three have fewer than five employees, against about half in the Nashville metro, and the average Miami-Dade workplace is half the size of Nashville's (19.9 employees).

What Miami businesses do

Average pay is our calculation from CBP payroll and employees. Professional services is the biggest sector by count but averages five people per office: law, accounting, consulting and design practices. Wholesale trade and freight show Miami's role as a gateway to Latin America: 8,354 wholesale establishments and 1,110 freight transportation arrangement offices (NAICS 488510), the forwarders and customs brokers that move goods through the port and the airport. CBP counts locations with paid employees rather than companies, excludes the self-employed and government, and measures employment in the pay period including March 12, 2023.

The biggest companies headquartered in Miami-Dade

Ranked by revenue in each company's latest annual report on Form 10-K, among SEC-registered listed companies whose 10-K cover gives a principal executive office in the county:

The 20 reported $195.43 billion. BankUnited's figure is net interest income plus non-interest income, not its $1.79 billion of interest income. Immersion's revenue is mostly Barnes & Noble Education, a controlling interest it has consolidated since June 2024. Restaurant Brands is incorporated in Canada and Tecnoglass in the Cayman Islands with its factories in Colombia, but both give Miami principal executive offices on their 10-K covers. Fresh Del Monte Produce ($4.32 billion) is left out: its cover gives a principal executive office in George Town, Cayman Islands, with US executive offices in Coral Gables. OPKO Health ($606.9 million) and Amerant Bancorp of Coral Gables are next.

Three themes run through the list: travel (the three cruise lines, $54.38 billion between them), building and real estate (Lennar, MasTec, Watsco, Starwood, Douglas Elliman) and trade (World Kinect's aviation, marine and land fuel, Ryder's trucks, Intermex's remittances to Latin America and the Caribbean).

Who employs the most people in Miami-Dade

Miami-Dade County's Annual Comprehensive Financial Report for fiscal 2025 lists 15 principal employers, using figures from FloridaCommerce's Bureau of Workforce Statistics and Economic Research and the Beacon Council:

The 15 employ 183,452 people, 12.69% of county employment. Seven are public bodies (93,691 employees), and none of the headquarters in the revenue ranking appears: the list is schools, government, universities, hospitals, an airline and big retailers. Publix, Amazon and Walmart are new since the 2016 list. The U.S. Federal Government (19,300) and Florida State Government (19,200), third and fourth in 2016, are gone; the 2025 list names the Postal Service and Homeland Security separately instead. The schedule lists Baptist Hospital of Miami and Baptist Health South Florida as separate entries.

Finding and checking a Miami company

For a private company, Sunbiz's annual report history is the most useful free check: under section 605.0714 of the Florida Statutes, the state may administratively dissolve an LLC that misses its annual report or lets its registered agent lapse, and the officer list tells you who runs it. For licensed trades and real estate, confirm the license number on the DBPR search before you sign anything.

Prospecting Miami's freight forwarders

Miami-Dade's 1,110 freight transportation arrangement offices are a concentrated, reachable market: most are owner-run, and they buy compliance, software, insurance and trucking.

Illustrative example. The company, prices and results are fictional; the counts are from CBP 2023.

Brickell Trade Compliance (brickelltrade.example) sells export screening and customs filing software to forwarders.

• Freight transportation arrangement establishments in Miami-Dade with 10 to 99 employees: 117 + 84 + 13 = 214.
• It leaves out the 888 with fewer than ten, which rarely pay for software, and the largest, which run global systems.
• At $9,000 a year and a 10% win rate over two years, that's about 21 customers and $189,000 in annual revenue.

The buyer is the owner or the compliance manager, and the moment to call is after a failed audit, a new export control rule or the loss of a staff member who handled filings by hand. Finding which of the 214 handle Latin American exports, and who signs off, is the research Bebop does for each account.

Subject: Export screening at [Company]

Hi [first name],

Most forwarders your size still screen consignees and file export data by hand, and one missed denied-party match is an expensive lesson.

We run screening and AES filing for Miami forwarders handling Latin American freight, set up in a week and priced per user. Could I show you how it would fit the way your team files today?

[Your name], Brickell Trade Compliance

Next step: for the carriers that move this freight, see trucking companies in Miami.