Best Cities to Start a Business in New Jersey

Lacking the repute and vast wealth of its neighbor to the north, New Jersey has nevertheless developed a significant high-tech start-up community of its own in recent years. There has never been a better time to start a business in the state.

More and more young and industrious graduates from universities like Rutgers, Princeton, and NJIT are choosing smaller cities like Newark and Hoboken as bases to start a business for their lower cost of living, compared to New York, and a greater chance of standing out in the crowd.

In fact, New Jersey recently placed on Gust’s list of top ten states with startups seeking funding. Steadily rising investment activity over the past five years provides the means for these tech hopefuls to develop and thrive in the Garden State.

The state government has also played a hand in easing the financial burden of a business’s trying early existence. Put into action by the 2013 New Jersey Economic Opportunity Act, the Grow NJ program offers considerable tax incentives for entrepreneurs that choose to develop a business in the state, up to $5000 per job for a fledgling business able to maintain at least ten full-time positions.

What’s better: there are no restrictions on industry type, so whether you wish to develop a business in the tech, health, or finance sectors—even open a restaurant–your business is eligible for Grow NJ’s tax incentives and related benefits.

Only cities with over 50,000 inhabitants are reported in the results. Some data had to be interpolated to the county level and extrapolated to all the cities in the county. We concentrated on the following metrics to obtain our ranking: Cost of living, Best state for business, Unemployment, Kauffman index, and Universities.