Businesses in Richmond, Virginia: 19 public headquarters, the largest employers and 33,589 workplaces

This page is for anyone searching for businesses in Richmond, Virginia: job seekers, suppliers, companies thinking of moving to Central Virginia and B2B sellers building a target list. It starts with the public companies headquartered in the metro, then the largest employers, the Census count of every business by locality and size, the industries that pay best, and the state and regional records for checking a company. The Census figures cover the 17 counties and independent cities of the Richmond, VA metro.

Public companies headquartered in Richmond

Nineteen 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. Atlantic Union's is net interest income ($1.15 billion) plus noninterest income ($0.22 billion), and Accendra's is from continuing operations after the businesses it reports as discontinued. ASGN's 10-K for 2025 says it announced in November 2025 that it would rebrand as Everforth, the name now on its SEC record. ARKO Petroleum, a separately listed ARKO subsidiary at the same address, is left out to avoid counting its sales twice.

Two events to note. Dominion Energy signed a merger agreement with NextEra Energy on 15 May 2026, and its shareholders approved the merger at a special meeting on 3 September 2026, according to its 8-K filings. And the region's largest employer, Capital One, isn't on the list at all: its 10-K gives McLean, in Northern Virginia, as its head office.

Richmond's largest employers

The Greater Richmond Partnership, the regional economic development organization for the City of Richmond and Chesterfield, Hanover and Henrico counties, publishes a Largest Employers list for the metro, updated February 2026. It excludes government and retail operations:

The Partnership notes that some employers combine headquarters and branch staff, that the locality shown is where most employees work, and that its sources include local business media, state WARN notices and commercial databases. CoStar Group (2,400), Bank of America (1,921) and Markel Group (1,886) come next.

Virginia Works, the state's labor market information office, ranks the metro's 50 largest employers from unemployment insurance records for the third quarter of 2025, including government. Its top five are the US Department of Defense, MCV Hospital, HCA Virginia Health System, the Chesterfield County School Board and Bon Secours; Capital One appears as two entries, its bank at tenth and Capital One NA at 25th. It doesn't publish counts.

How many businesses are in Richmond

In bands: 28,072 establishments with 1 to 19 employees, 4,707 with 20 to 99 and 810 with 100 or more. The metro paid $38,909,800,000 in 2023, averaging $67,600 a year and 17.1 employees per establishment, and holds 0.40% of the 8,361,342 US establishments. Goochland County stands out: 756 establishments with 24,730 employees, 32.7 per establishment, home to the Capital One and CarMax campuses on the Partnership's list. County Business Patterns (CBP) measures workplaces with a payroll, not legal entities, and omits sole proprietors without employees.

New businesses arrive steadily. Virginia Works counts new startup firms, new private employers with fewer than 250 employees and no predecessor: 488 in the metro in the third quarter of 2025 and 2,112 in the four quarters to September 2025.

Where Richmond pays best

Average pay is our calculation from CBP payroll; the finance and management payroll figures carry the Census Bureau's moderate-noise flag. Finance and insurance is where Richmond differs from most metros its size: 1,959 establishments, but 10 of them with 1,000 or more employees, and pay more than twice the metro average. Insurance carriers alone number 173 establishments with 9,783 employees at an average of $126,764. The 234 management-of-companies establishments, mostly corporate offices, average 102 employees each.

Checking a Richmond business

Each locality has its own Virginia Works profile, so you can see the 50 largest employers in Henrico or Chesterfield alone. For contractors, check DPOR as well as the company's SCC record before you sign.

Prospecting Richmond companies

Richmond's buyers cluster in three places: the headquarters along West Broad Street and the West Creek corridor, the health systems and university in the city, and the financial and insurance operations in Henrico and Glen Allen. Headquarters buy for national operations, so a contract won in Richmond can cover sites across the country.

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

James River Claims Review (jamesriverclaims.example) audits paid claims for specialty insurers and recovers overpayments on a contingency fee.

• Insurance carrier establishments in the metro: 173.
• Those with 20 or more employees, likely to run their own claims operations: 20 + 11 + 6 + 4 + 7 = 48.
• It assumes half write the commercial lines it knows: about 24 prospects.
• Recovering an average of $400,000 a year at a 25% fee from four clients would bring in $400,000.

It targets the vice president of claims and the head of claims operations, and times outreach to the months after an insurer reports reserve increases in its 10-K or 10-Q. Sorting 48 establishments into carriers that handle their own claims and branches of larger groups is the slow part; Bebop researches each one and explains why it fits.

Subject: Overpayments in [Company]'s closed commercial claims

Hi [first name],

Most specialty carriers we review have paid claims that were billed twice, coded wrongly or paid after coverage ended, and nobody has time to go back through closed files.

We audit closed claims on contingency, so you only pay from what we recover. Could I show you what we found in a year of claims at a carrier your size?

[Your name], James River Claims Review

Next step: see the rest of the state in companies in Virginia.