Businesses in South Carolina: 122,958 employers, how to look one up and where the factories are

This page is for anyone looking up, choosing or counting businesses in South Carolina: residents checking out a contractor, people forming a company, suppliers looking for customers, and B2B sellers deciding which part of the state to work. It starts with how to look a business up, then gives the counts by county, sector and ownership, the public companies based here and how to prospect the state's plants.

How to look up a business in South Carolina

The Secretary of State's search is on sos.sc.gov; its pages turned away our automated checks, so open it in a browser. Search by a distinctive word in the name rather than the full name, since entity names often carry "LLC" or "Inc." variations, and check the entity's status before you rely on it. For licensed trades and professions, such as contractors, check the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation's license lookup as well.

How many businesses are in South Carolina

The Census Bureau's County Business Patterns (CBP) for South Carolina, all sectors, 2023:

That's 104,774 establishments with 1 to 19 employees, 15,389 with 20 to 99 and 2,795 with 100 or more. 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.

Who owns them

CBP's state file splits establishments by legal form of organization:

Shares are our calculation. Nearly half of South Carolina's workplaces are S corporations, most of them small; C corporation sites average 32.9 employees and employ almost half the private workforce.

Where the businesses are

Greenville County has the most employees though Charleston has slightly more establishments. Spartanburg's establishments average 20.3 employees, the most of the ten; Beaufort's average 9.7 and Horry's 11.7, the fewest.

What South Carolina businesses do

Average pay is our calculation. Administrative and support services, which includes staffing agencies and professional employer organizations, employs the most people, because CBP counts workers at the firm that pays them. Manufacturing is where the big sites are:

Six tire plants (NAICS 326211) employ 6,585. The South Carolina Department of Commerce counts more than 600 automotive-related companies in the state, names BMW, Volvo Cars, Scout Motors, Mercedes-Benz Vans, Oshkosh Defense and Isuzu as its vehicle makers, and says the state ranked first in US passenger vehicle exports in 2024 and 2025. All six belong to groups whose parent companies are based outside South Carolina, so none files a 10-K as a South Carolina company or appears in the next table. For the state's carriers and logistics firms, see trucking companies in South Carolina.

Public companies headquartered in South Carolina

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

United Community Banks' figure is the total revenue it reports (net interest income plus noninterest income), not its $1.38 billion of interest revenue; Southern First's is net interest income plus noninterest income. Five of the 11 are in the Upstate around Greenville, and Fort Mill's two sit just across the line from Charlotte. Denny's, based in Spartanburg, filed to end its SEC registration in January 2026, so it no longer files 10-Ks. For the Charlotte side of York County, see companies in Charlotte.

Largest employers

South Carolina doesn't publish a single statewide ranking of employers that we could open, so we don't rank them here. CBP gives the shape instead: 121 establishments have 1,000 or more employees, 31 of them in manufacturing and 31 in health care, and 18 in administrative and support services.

Prospecting South Carolina's auto parts plants

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

Palmetto Uptime (palmettouptime.example) installs vibration and temperature sensors that warn maintenance teams before a press or molding line fails.

• Motor vehicle parts plants (NAICS 3363) with 50 to 499 employees: 19 + 18 + 11 = 48.
• It assumes half run stamping, molding or machining lines suited to sensors: 24.
• Six paid pilots convert to four plant contracts at $60,000 a year: $240,000.

The buyer is the plant's maintenance or reliability manager, with the plant manager signing; the opening is unplanned downtime on a line that feeds an assembly plant on a just-in-time schedule. Working out which of the 48 make what, and who runs maintenance at each, is the account research Bebop does before the first email.

Subject: Unplanned downtime on [line or press]

Hi [first name],

When a press at a parts plant goes down, the cost isn't just the repair: it's the missed shipment to an assembly line that doesn't wait.

We fit wireless vibration and temperature sensors to presses and molding machines and alert your team days before a failure. Could we run a 60-day pilot on your two most critical machines?

[Your name], Palmetto Uptime

Next step: reach the right person at each plant with how to find decision makers.