Is there clear data on whether Nevada has become a less friendly place to start a business?

Different methodologies yield different results for Nevada’s perceived entrepreneurial friendliness.

WalletHub and Motley Fool respectively ranked Nevada as the eighth and tenth best state to start a business.

In contrast, Forbes ranked Nevada 44th, and CNBC ranked Nevada 39th.

Nevada, which has no corporate income tax, consistently ranks among the top states for business-tax climate. Nevada also ranks high in small business growth.

However, issues with the state’s health care and education systems, along with its above-average cost of living, bring the state’s position down in rankings that more heavily weight these metrics.

Even so, the number of new business applications Nevada has received in recent years has been above average for the state, according to data from the Census Bureau. After hovering around 3,000 per month between 2005 and 2020, applications spiked to 6,622 in July 2020. Since then, they’ve fluctuated roughly between 4,000 and 6,000 per month. In January, Nevada received 5,093 applications.