Companies in Wisconsin: 144,774 businesses, a manufacturing state, and the headquarters from Kenosha to Green Bay

This page is for anyone looking for Wisconsin companies: to buy from, work for, research or sell to. It covers the Census count statewide and by county, what Wisconsin businesses make, the 15 biggest headquarters with figures from their filings grouped by region, the records for checking a company, and a worked example among the state's cheese makers.

How many businesses are in Wisconsin

In bands, 120,281 establishments have 1 to 19 employees, 20,273 have 20 to 99 and 4,220 have 100 or more. County Business Patterns covers all sectors, counts every location with a payroll separately and leaves out the self-employed, including most family farms. Figures are for 2023, with employment in mid-March.

Where Wisconsin's businesses are

Milwaukee, Dane and Waukesha counties hold 33.1% of the state's establishments, against 58.5% for the three largest counties in Illinois, so a Wisconsin territory has to cover several regional centers. Winnebago County, home to Oshkosh Corporation and Plexus, has the biggest workplaces of any large county, 24.1 employees each. The Green Bay and Fox Valley counties (Brown, Outagamie and Winnebago) together have 15,810 establishments.

What Wisconsin businesses do

Average pay is our calculation. Manufacturing employs more people than any other sector, ahead of health care. Within it, machinery is the largest group, and dairy and paper, the two industries most tied to Wisconsin's farms and forests, still employ 54,903 people between them.

The largest companies headquartered in Wisconsin

Ranked by revenue in each company's latest 10-K, with the city from its cover page:

Snap-on's figure is total revenue including its financial services arm, Kohl's includes other revenue on top of $14.78 billion of net sales, and Rockwell's and Plexus's are for years to September 2025. Spectrum Brands of Middleton ($2.81 billion, year to September 2025) and Quad of Sussex ($2.42 billion) come next. Outside the metros, Lands' End reported $1.34 billion from Dodgeville.

Two well-known names aren't ranked. Exact Sciences of Madison, which reported $3.25 billion in 2025, completed its merger with Abbott Laboratories on March 23, 2026. And Johnson Controls, long tied to Milwaukee, gives Cork, Ireland as its principal executive office in its 10-K. Many of the state's other big employers are private or mutual companies that don't file with the SEC. For the Milwaukee metro alone, see companies in Milwaukee.

Finding and checking a Wisconsin company

To vet a supplier, confirm the entity is in good standing with the Department of Financial Institutions, check any state license its trade requires, and for food suppliers ask for their state dairy or food processing license and recent inspection results.

Prospecting Wisconsin's cheese makers

Cheese is the industry that makes Wisconsin's business map unusual: 176 plants employing 22,740 people, most of them mid-sized and many far from a metro.

Illustrative example. The company, rates and results are fictional; the counts are from County Business Patterns.

Driftless Food Lab (driftlessfoodlab.example) runs pathogen and shelf-life testing for dairy plants, with courier pickup.

1. Cheese manufacturing establishments (NAICS 311513) in Wisconsin with 20 to 249 employees: 33 + 32 + 43 = 108.
2. Plants with 250 to 499 employees add 20, for 128.
3. It assumes a quarter already run full in-house labs and won't switch: about 96 plants that send testing out.
4. Winning one in eight of those in a year is 12 plants, enough to justify a second courier route.

It targets quality assurance managers and plant managers, and times outreach to customer audits and to new product launches that need shelf-life data. Working out which of 128 plants test in-house, and who runs quality at each, is the research Bebop does for each account.

Subject: Faster pathogen results for [Plant]

Hi [first name],

When a customer audit or a hold is waiting on pathogen results, every extra day in the lab costs a plant like [Plant] shelf life and cash.

We pick up samples from dairy plants across Wisconsin and report most pathogen tests within 48 hours, with results your auditors can pull directly. Could I send our turnaround times and pricing for your current test schedule?

[Your name], Driftless Food Lab

Next step: see the full factory picture in manufacturing companies in Wisconsin.