Companies in San Antonio: 52,088 businesses, a military base as top employer and Valero at the top

This page is for anyone trying to find or size up companies in San Antonio: residents choosing a supplier, job seekers, military contractors, investors, and B2B sellers deciding where in South Texas to spend their time. It starts with who employs the most people, then the public headquarters, the business counts and the Texas records that let you check any company.

San Antonio's largest employers

The City of San Antonio's Annual Comprehensive Financial Report for fiscal 2025 (the year to September 30, 2025) lists its principal employers, from the city's Economic Development Division, the Book of Lists 2025 and Department of Defense personnel statistics:

The ten employ 185,432 people, 12.75% of the metro's 1,206,000 nonfarm jobs in September 2025 on the report's measure. The military base is more than a third of that total, even after its count fell from 93,434 in 2016. Greater SATX, the regional economic development partnership, puts Joint Base San Antonio's direct employment higher, at more than 82,000, so check which count a source uses. Wells Fargo, ninth in 2016 with 6,100, has dropped off.

Only three of the ten are businesses, and none is a public company: H-E-B is privately owned and USAA belongs to its members, so neither files a 10-K.

The biggest companies headquartered in San Antonio

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

The ten reported $143.87 billion, and Valero's refining revenue, which includes excise taxes, is 85.3% of it. Cullen/Frost's figure is net interest income plus non-interest income ($1.74 billion plus $499.1 million), not its $2.42 billion of interest income. Rush Enterprises' is total revenue including leasing and rental. Victory Capital's SEC company record still shows an old Ohio address, but its 10-K cover gives La Cantera Parkway in San Antonio. Clear Channel Outdoor, based on North Loop 1604 West, reported $1.60 billion for 2025 but filed to end its SEC registration on 26 October 2026, so it's left out. Usio ($85.4 million) is the next San Antonio filer.

How many businesses are in San Antonio

County Business Patterns (CBP) for the San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX Metro Area (CBSA 41700), all sectors, 2023:

By size, 43,555 establishments have 1 to 19 employees (83.6%), 7,011 have 20 to 99 and 1,522 have 100 or more, including 70 with 1,000 or more. CBP counts locations with paid employees rather than companies, leaves out the self-employed and government (so the base and the school districts above aren't in these counts), and measures employment in the pay period including March 12, 2023.

What San Antonio businesses do

Average pay is our calculation. Finance and insurance is San Antonio's distinctive cluster: nine of its establishments have 1,000 or more employees, and direct property and casualty insurers (NAICS 524126) alone employ 19,694 people at 86 establishments. Hotels and restaurants employ more people (128,104) than retail (122,359), though at an average of $24,677. For the region's oil and gas firms, see oil and gas companies in San Antonio.

How to look up and check a San Antonio company

In the Comptroller's file, updated 24 October 2026, Bexar County has 156,152 active franchise taxpayers, 3.9 for every establishment with a payroll, and 22,105 of them began franchise tax responsibility on or after October 1, 2025. Comal County, around New Braunfels, has 23,397. Most entities in the file have no employees, so treat it as a list of names to check, not a count of operating businesses. We counted by the county code in the file, which follows the taxpayer's mailing address.

Prospecting San Antonio's medical practices

San Antonio's medical offices are a large, reachable market: 2,069 physician office establishments (NAICS 6211) with 24,095 employees across the metro.

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

Alamo Revenue Partners (alamorevenue.example) takes over billing and collections for independent practices.

• Physician offices with 10 to 49 employees: 326 + 173 = 499.
• It assumes 70% still bill in-house: about 349 practices.
• Signing 2% in the first year is 7 practices; at an average of $60,000 a year in fees, that's $420,000.

The decision sits with the practice owner or administrator, and the trigger is a billing manager leaving or a rise in denied claims. Finding which of the 349 are independent rather than hospital-owned, and who manages the money, is the research Bebop does for each practice.

Subject: Denied claims at [Practice]

Hi [first name],

When a practice your size loses its billing lead, denials pile up within a month and cash slows down for the rest of the quarter.

We run billing and collections for independent San Antonio practices, working inside your existing system, with fees tied to what we collect. Could I send a one-page review of what we'd look at first in your accounts receivable?

[Your name], Alamo Revenue Partners

Next step: for the statewide picture, including the Comptroller's full taxpayer file, see companies in Texas.