The best businesses to start in Illinois right now
Food trucks & mobile food led Illinois in 2026 Q1, adding +7.0% jobs over the year. Below, 14 common first businesses ranked by official BLS job growth, with locations, pay and what each costs to open. Free, updated every quarter.
- Food trucks & mobile food+7.0%
- Pet care & grooming+5.8%
- Coffee shops & cafés+5.6%
- Gyms & fitness studios+5.2%
- Quick-service restaurants+0.8%
- Auto repair shops+0.7%
- Landscaping services+0.5%
- Child day care+0.3%
- Bars & taverns+0.2%
- Full-service restaurants-0.1%
- Nail salons-1.1%
- Hair & beauty salons-1.7%
- Dry cleaning & laundry-2.3%
- Cleaning & janitorial-2.5%
Table view
| Business type | Jobs YoY | Establishments | Avg weekly wage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Food trucks & mobile food | +7.0% | 282 | $493 |
| Pet care & grooming | +5.8% | 1,088 | $594 |
| Coffee shops & cafés | +5.6% | 2,493 | $482 |
| Gyms & fitness studios | +5.2% | 1,518 | $486 |
| Quick-service restaurants | +0.8% | 9,497 | $478 |
| Auto repair shops | +0.7% | 3,679 | $1,183 |
| Landscaping services | +0.5% | 5,277 | $1,007 |
| Child day care | +0.3% | 2,914 | $686 |
| Bars & taverns | +0.2% | 3,132 | $477 |
| Full-service restaurants | -0.1% | 10,080 | $609 |
| Nail salons | -1.1% | 937 | $560 |
| Hair & beauty salons | -1.7% | 3,076 | $673 |
| Dry cleaning & laundry | -2.3% | 548 | $677 |
| Cleaning & janitorial | -2.5% | 2,857 | $746 |
The short answer for Illinois
The best business to start in Illinois by job growth is food trucks & mobile food, up +7.0% over the year in 2026 Q1, followed by pet care & grooming (+5.8%) and coffee shops & cafés (+5.6%). The most common type is full-service restaurants, with 10,080 locations. The best-paying is auto repair shops, at $1,183 a week on average.
Growth tells you a type is hiring. It does not tell you whether the corner you have in mind has room for one more. Pick a row below to see what it costs to open and run a report for your city.
Ranking · Illinois · 2026 Q1
Ranked by the change in jobs compared with the same quarter one year earlier. Rows marked n/a are suppressed by BLS for confidentiality.
| # | Business type | Jobs YoY | Locations YoY | Locations | Jobs | Avg weekly wage | Startup range | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | NAICS 722330 | +7.0% | +20.5% | 282 | 769 | $493 | $50,000–$300,000 | |
| 2 | NAICS 812910 | +5.8% | +6.9% | 1,088 | 8,224 | $594 | $10,000–$50,000 | |
| 3 | NAICS 722515 | +5.6% | +6.1% | 2,493 | 31,451 | $482 | $50,000–$300,000 | |
| 4 | NAICS 713940 | +5.2% | +5.9% | 1,518 | 27,779 | $486 | $30,000–$200,000 | |
| 5 | NAICS 722513 | +0.8% | +2.8% | 9,497 | 167,004 | $478 | $50,000–$300,000 | |
| 6 | NAICS 811111 | +0.7% | +1.9% | 3,679 | 18,242 | $1,183 | $50,000–$300,000 | |
| 7 | NAICS 561730 | +0.5% | +4.4% | 5,277 | 21,027 | $1,007 | $10,000–$50,000 | |
| 8 | NAICS 624410 | +0.3% | +3.1% | 2,914 | 39,270 | $686 | $30,000–$150,000 | |
| 9 | NAICS 722410 | +0.2% | +1.6% | 3,132 | 26,402 | $477 | $50,000–$300,000 | |
| 10 | NAICS 722511 | -0.1% | +3.2% | 10,080 | 186,679 | $609 | $50,000–$300,000 | |
| 11 | NAICS 812113 | -1.1% | +4.2% | 937 | 2,841 | $560 | $20,000–$100,000 | |
| 12 | NAICS 812112 | -1.7% | +3.5% | 3,076 | 15,977 | $673 | $20,000–$100,000 | |
| 13 | NAICS 812320 | -2.3% | -0.9% | 548 | 3,508 | $677 | $25,000–$150,000 | |
| 14 | NAICS 561720 | -2.5% | +5.1% | 2,857 | 47,411 | $746 | $10,000–$50,000 |
Each business type in Illinois
One page per type: how many there are, growth, pay, density per 100,000 residents and where Illinois ranks among the states.
The growth ranking for Illinois reads the same quarter as an article.
Questions people ask
What is the best business to start in Illinois?
By job growth, food trucks & mobile food led Illinois in 2026 Q1, up +7.0% over the year across 282 locations. Next came pet care & grooming (+5.8%) and coffee shops & cafés (+5.6%). Growth means the type is hiring, not that every corner has room for one more, so check the competition where you plan to open.
What is the most common small business in Illinois?
Among the 14 types tracked here, full-service restaurants is the most common in Illinois, with 10,080 locations with payroll in 2026 Q1.
Which small business pays the most in Illinois?
Auto repair shops has the highest average weekly wage of the 14 types in Illinois, $1,183 in 2026 Q1. Wages are what the business pays its staff; owner profit depends on margins, rent and competition, which a Neur report estimates for one address.
Every state
Growth is local. The same business type can be booming in one state and shrinking in the next.
Methodology
- Source. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), private-sector rows, 6-digit NAICS. QCEW is a near-complete count from unemployment-insurance filings, not a survey.
- Period. 2026 Q1, the latest quarter BLS has published. Each figure is compared with the same quarter a year earlier, using BLS's own over-the-year change fields.
- Ranking. By year-over-year change in month-three employment. Ties and suppressed values sort to the bottom.
- Business types. 14 consumer-facing industries that first-time entrepreneurs commonly open. The set is fixed so rankings are comparable across states.
- Startup range. Neur's planning range for the industry category, the same figures used by the Financial pillar of a Neur report. See the methodology.
- Refresh. Data is re-fetched from BLS daily and changes when a new quarter is released (about five months after the quarter ends).
- Caveats. Growth in jobs is not the same as room for a new entrant; a fast-growing type can also be getting crowded. Use a Neur report to check competition and demographics for a specific city.
Free JSON API
The full dataset is available as JSON with CORS enabled. No key required. Please cache responses for at least an hour.
| Endpoint | Returns |
|---|---|
GET /api/data/top-businesses | National ranking plus all 50 states |
GET /api/data/top-businesses?state=texas | One state (slug is the lowercase state name, hyphenated) |
Fields per row: naics, label, establishments, employment, avgWeeklyWage, employmentChangePct, establishmentsChangePct, wageChangePct, startupCost. Top level: period, source, generatedAt.
Using this data
You may reproduce these figures with attribution. Please link to this page as the source: https://www.neur.co/data/top-businesses/illinois. Screenshots of the table are welcome; a link back is what lets us keep the feed free.