The biggest companies in Chicago: the top 30 headquarters by revenue

This ranking is for readers who want the big Chicago-area headquarters in order: job seekers, suppliers targeting corporate buyers, investors and B2B sellers planning enterprise accounts. For the full market of 248,519 business establishments, see companies in Chicago.

The 30 biggest companies headquartered in Chicago

Each row is from the company's latest annual report on Form 10-K: the headquarters city on its cover, revenue as reported (total revenues or net sales), and the headcount in its human capital section.

Headcounts are company-wide. McDonald's figure covers the company and the restaurants its subsidiaries operate, not franchisees' staff. Hyatt says about 242,000 people work at its offices and hotels, of whom it directly employs about 50,000. US Foods' fiscal year ended December 27, 2025.

Who isn't on the list, and why

Older lists of Chicago's biggest companies still include names whose filings now say otherwise:

Private companies are also missing, because they don't publish revenue. And Northern Trust and Old Republic show how revenue definitions differ by industry: banks report total revenue after interest expense, and insurers' revenue includes investment income as well as premiums.

Fortune 500 companies in Chicago

World Business Chicago counts 30 Fortune 500 companies in the region. Fortune ranks by revenue too, so its list and this one broadly agree, but Fortune applies its own revenue definitions and fiscal-year cutoffs, so ranks and the exact membership can differ. Use Fortune's site for its ranks and this table for figures you can trace to a filing.

What the top 30 look like

The rest are an airline (United), utilities (Exelon, NiSource), real estate services (JLL), technology distribution and equipment (CDW, Motorola Solutions), retail (Ulta) and hotels (Hyatt). Food and health care alone are more than half the total, which makes the Chicago list unusually dependent on consumer staples compared with tech-heavy lists in Austin or the Bay Area.

Selling to Chicago's biggest companies

Companies this size buy through procurement. Expect a supplier portal, a security and compliance review, insurance certificates, and payment terms set by the buyer. Large companies often publish supplier codes of conduct and supplier diversity programs, which tell you what they'll ask for before you're asked. The 10-K helps you aim: segments name the business units that hold separate budgets, and the fiscal year tells you when next year's budget is set (Conagra's year ends in May, Ulta's in January, most others in December).

Illustrative example. The seller and its figures are fictional; the company figures are from the table.

Lakeshore Safety (lakeshoresafety.example) delivers on-site safety training priced per plant and wants manufacturers and distributors among the top 30.

• From the table it picks seven: ADM, Mondelez, ITW, Dover, Packaging Corp, Ingredion and Conagra.
• Their combined headcount is about 245,000, so even if only a tenth work at North American plants and depots, that's roughly 24,500 people.
• At $3,000 per plant per year and an assumed 20 plants won across the seven, the opportunity is about $60,000 a year, small for them and meaningful for Lakeshore.
• Because plants buy within corporate safety standards, it starts with the environmental, health and safety lead at headquarters, then each plant manager.

Bebop can find the EHS leaders and plant managers at each of the seven and draft outreach that references the company's own safety goals.

Subject: Plant safety training across [Company]'s sites

Hi [first name],

Your 10-K describes [number] manufacturing sites and a goal to [reduce recordable incidents]. Delivering the same training consistently across that many plants is usually the hard part.

We run on-site safety training for Midwest plants on one contract, scheduled around shifts, with records your team can audit. Would a sample curriculum for two of your Illinois sites be useful?

[Your name], Lakeshore Safety

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