Businesses in Virginia: 210,842 workplaces, the defense and finance headquarters, and the state's top 50 employers

This page is for anyone who needs to know which businesses are in Virginia: job seekers, suppliers, researchers and B2B sellers working the state's three very different regions. It covers the largest employers on the state's own list, the biggest headquarters, the full Census count by county and city, and a worked example for selling to the government contractors that dominate Northern Virginia.

Virginia's largest employers

Virginia Works, the state's workforce agency, ranks the 50 largest employers in its statewide community profile, from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages for the third quarter of 2025 (profile updated 1 April 2026). It gives ranks, not headcounts. The top 20, with names as the state lists them:

Ranks 21 to 50 include Target, Booz Allen Hamilton, Virginia Tech, Lowe's, Navy Federal Credit Union, Kroger, SAIC, CACI and George Mason University. Some names are the legal entities in the unemployment insurance records rather than today's brand names. Two patterns matter for anyone selling here: public employers and health systems fill much of the list, and the private names include the government contractors (Huntington Ingalls, Booz Allen, SAIC, CACI) whose own customer is the federal government.

The biggest companies headquartered in Virginia

The 20 largest SEC-registered public companies whose latest 10-K gives a Virginia principal executive office, by revenue in that filing:

Most fiscal years ended in December 2025; Performance Food Group's ended in June 2026, CarMax's in February 2026, Dollar Tree's in January 2026, Amentum's in October 2025 and DXC's in March 2026. Ferguson's figure is for the year to July 31, 2025, its last full year before it moved its year end to December. Capital One's revenue is total net revenue and Freddie Mac's is net revenues; Freddie Mac has been in federal conservatorship since 2008 and its shares trade over the counter. Performance Food Group's revenue includes excise taxes it collects. Hilton ($12.04 billion) and Booz Allen Hamilton ($11.22 billion) come next.

By region, 11 of the 20 are in Northern Virginia (Arlington, McLean, Reston, Falls Church, Chantilly and Ashburn), five around Richmond and four in Hampton Roads (Ferguson, Dollar Tree, Smithfield and Huntington Ingalls). See companies in Richmond for the capital region.

How many businesses are in Virginia

In bands: 177,477 establishments with 1 to 19 employees, 28,063 with 20 to 99 and 5,302 with 100 or more. These County Business Patterns (CBP) counts cover private employers across all sectors, one row per location, for the pay period including March 12, 2023. They exclude the self-employed and, importantly in Virginia, government employers, so the Pentagon and the state's universities don't appear in them.

Counties and independent cities

Virginia's 38 independent cities are separate from the counties around them, and CBP reports them separately. That changes how you read the list:

A "Richmond" territory is really Richmond city plus Henrico and Chesterfield counties: 24,541 establishments together. Arlington has the largest workplaces of the ten, at 25.2 employees each.

What Virginia businesses do

Average pay is our calculation from CBP payroll. Professional services is Virginia's largest sector by establishments, employees and payroll. Within it, computer systems design firms (9,439 establishments, 204,399 employees), management consultancies (7,106; 109,940) and architecture and engineering firms (3,485; 85,320) do much of the work the federal government buys.

How to look up a Virginia business

Each county and independent city has its own community profile with its 50 largest employers, a free way to see the big local buyers in Loudoun or Norfolk.

Prospecting Northern Virginia's government contractors

Mid-size federal contractors run lean business development teams that buy outside help when several bids land at once.

Illustrative example. The company, rates and results are fictional, to show the method.

Potomac Proposal Partners (potomacproposals.example) writes and manages federal proposals on contract.

• Computer systems design establishments with 20 to 249 employees in Fairfax County: 310 + 198 + 167 = 675.
• Loudoun County adds 95 + 43 + 24 = 162, and Arlington 46 + 34 + 32 = 112, for 949 in all.
• It assumes 40% of them bid as prime contractors at least once a year: about 380 firms.
• Winning a first engagement with 5% a year would mean 19 new clients.

It targets the vice president of business development or the capture manager, and times outreach to recompetes of contracts the firm already holds. Working out which of 949 sites are prime contractors with work coming up for recompete takes research on each one; Bebop can do it for every account on the list.

Subject: [Agency] recompete and your proposal team

Hi [first name],

Your [contract name] with [agency] looks set to recompete next year, and that usually lands on the same team writing two or three other bids.

We run federal proposals end to end for contractors your size, from compliance matrix to final production, with writers who've worked [agency] bids before. Could I send you a one-page plan for how we'd staff it?

[Your name], Potomac Proposal Partners

Next step: build the account list with how to build a prospect list.