Companies in Raleigh: 39,252 businesses, the Chamber's 41 big employers and a bank at the top

This page is for anyone trying to get a picture of the companies in Raleigh: people moving here for work, people choosing a contractor or partner, and B2B sellers deciding whether Raleigh, Cary and the rest of Wake County justify their own territory. It covers the largest employers, the public companies headquartered here, the business counts and sectors, and how to check a North Carolina company.

Raleigh's largest employers

The Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce publishes a list of public and private employers in Wake County and Research Triangle Park with 2,000 or more employees. The page gives no as-of date (it is marked 2025) and doesn't name its source. The top 20:

The list runs to 41 employers, ending with Fidelity Investments, Lenovo, Duke Energy, Red Hat, First Citizens BancShares (2,400) and others at 2,000 to 3,600. Read it with its scope in mind: it includes Research Triangle Park, which is mostly in Durham County, and Duke and UNC Chapel Hill, which are based in Durham and Orange counties outside the Raleigh-Cary metro, so their counts are not all Raleigh jobs. For employers within Wake County itself, WakeMed (9,773), NC State (9,019) and UNC Rex (6,900) are the largest health care and education employers, and SAS Institute in Cary the largest private company on the list headquartered in the county.

Public companies headquartered in Raleigh

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

The 12 reported $36.81 billion. First Citizens' figure is net interest income plus noninterest income ($6.81 billion plus $2.73 billion), not its $11.78 billion of interest income. Pyxus, the leaf tobacco merchant, trades over the counter. flyExclusive shows a Raleigh address in the SEC's company records, but its 10-K cover gives Kinston, North Carolina, so it's left out. Big Wake County employers such as SAS Institute are private, and Lenovo and Red Hat belong to parent companies based outside the metro.

How many businesses are in Raleigh

County Business Patterns (CBP) for the Raleigh-Cary, NC Metro Area (CBSA 39580), all sectors, 2023:

That's 33,154 establishments with 1 to 19 employees, 5,182 with 20 to 99 and 916 with 100 or more. CBP counts locations with paid employees rather than companies, excludes the self-employed and government (so NC State, the State of North Carolina and the schools aren't in these counts), and measures employment in the pay period including March 12, 2023.

What Raleigh businesses do

Average pay is our calculation. Construction has the second-most establishments of any sector: 1,249 residential builders and 2,727 specialty trade contractors. The tech and life sciences jobs are real but concentrated in fewer, bigger sites: 169 software publishers employ 12,813 people. For the builders, see construction companies in Raleigh; for the tech firms, tech companies in Raleigh.

How to check a Raleigh company

For a contractor, also check its license with the North Carolina Licensing Board for General Contractors before you sign.

Prospecting Wake County's homebuilders

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

Neuse Framing Supply (neuseframing.example) delivers pre-cut framing packages to homebuilders.

• Residential building construction establishments (NAICS 2361) with 10 to 99 employees: 74 + 36 + 18 = 128.
• It assumes half build more than 20 homes a year: about 64.
• Winning 8 at an average of $120,000 a year in orders is $960,000.

The buyer is the owner or the head of purchasing, and the opening is a new subdivision or a framing crew shortage that pushes schedules back. Working out which of the 128 are starting new communities this year, and who buys their lumber, is the research Bebop does for each builder.

Subject: Framing schedule for [community]

Hi [first name],

When framing crews are short, the builders who stay on schedule are usually the ones whose lumber shows up cut, labeled and in order.

We deliver pre-cut framing packages to Triangle builders, sequenced by lot, so a crew can stand a house in fewer days. Could I price your next plan set against what you paid on the last one?

[Your name], Neuse Framing Supply

Next step: see the state as a whole in companies in North Carolina.