New Washington State Slogan: Your Business Is Good As Dead

No...that isn't a typo.  The Evergreen State is far from Ever-anything when it comes to determining the survival of a business.  When it comes to the survival rate of a business in the first year, the northernmost state in the northwest is the Grim Reaper.

Lendingtree.com has some disappointing data if you are thinking about going in to business for yourself regardless which side of the Cascade Mountains you choose.  What is more stunning about the numbers is that in last year's report, Washington State had the second lowest first year business failure rate at 16.7%.

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So How Bad Is It For Aspiring Business Owners?

It's pretty bad...no sugar coating.  The first year failure rate for businesses that opened between March of 2022 and March of 2023 was 40.8%.  That is staggering.  Washington D.C. was in second place at 32.2%, followed by Idaho in third at 30.7%...a full 10% percent lower.  The outlook doesn't exactly improve much after the first year.

The five year outlook for business health is 10th worst in the U.S. at 51% and the ten year outlook is worse than the one year outlook.  In fact, for the second year in a row Washington State was the worst for business health after a decade.  Last year's report saw a 78.5% failure rate over a decade, this year that number slightly improved to 76%.

You can see the numbers below:

California has the lowest business failure rate within the first year, at 18.5%. Then comes Kentucky in a very close second at 18.8%, and then Massachusetts at 19.2%.  You can check out more numbers yourself by clicking here.