Arizonans looking to start a business in their spare time or just make some extra money may find that they’re in the right place to do it.
Three Valley cities made the top five, and two others made the top 30 in LLC.com’s ranking of America’s Best Cities to Start a Side Hustle in 2023.
Gilbert was No. 2 overall, right behind the leader Salt Lake City and just ahead of Scottsdale. Chandler was No. 5 in the analysis, which examined 170 cities looking at eight metrics including affordability (LLC filing fees and income tax rates), flexibility (percentage of residents who work from home, average weekly working hours, and average commute time), unemployment rate, and accessibility factors (percentage of the population with internet access and the percentage who own a smartphone).
Further down the list, but still in the top 30 were Mesa at No. 20 and Phoenix at No. 27. Also on the list was Tucson at No. 25. Overall, Arizona was the state with the most cities on the list.
All Arizona cities benefited from the state’s LLC online filing fee of $50 and income tax rate of 4.5%, both of which the report described as low. The report said that combined with those, Arizona’s growth was also a factor.
“The Metro Phoenix area has seen explosive growth within the last several years,” the report said. “In fact, the metro area grew by an average of 291 people every day in 2020, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.”
For the Valley cities on the list, flexibility, time and connectedness were some of the biggest advantages. In Gilbert, 31.3% of employed residents work from home, and their average weekly working hours amount to 38.6 hours. In Chandler, 29.1% of employees work from home, with average weekly working time clocking in at 40.8 hours.
Scottsdale had more employed residents working from home, but the city’s weekly working hours were the same as Chandler’s, at 40.8.
As for Mesa and Phoenix, the work-from-home rate was 20.6% and 22.4%, respectively, and average working hours were 38.9 and 39.2, respectively.
Gilbert also had the highest percentage of residents with broadband internet among all the cities on the list, at 97%. Scottsdale and Chandler weren’t far behind, at 96.5% and 96.2%, respectively. Mesa’s percentage was 92.7%, and Phoenix’s was 91%.
In all the Valley cities, average daily commutes ranged between Scottsdale’s 21.1 minutes to Phoenix’s 24.5 minutes.
Data for the analysis came from the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Tax Foundations and state-level departments of corporations.
