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Your USA Business Location - Starting with the Basics

Deciding on the USA business location is a long-term decision and difficult to revoke at a later point. Once you are set on a certain place for the business, you are probably stuck for the rest of the life of the business at this USA business address. Even that there are exceptions to this; adding a moving project within the first three years makes no sense.

The United States are huge from a geographical perspective. Traveling from the East Coast to the West Coast by car is a five day trip. The continental states have a total of three hour time differences. So which one of the 50 states should be your headquarter? Where within those states could be the ideal USA business location? What USA office address should show up on the business cards?

Setting up your business in the United States will be accomplished by a certain level of uncertainty. Still, when it comes to your USA business place, you should try to eliminate as much unwelcome surprises as possible. If you need to - for example - fly a lot, the distance from your USA office address to the next airport and what kind of airport it is makes a difference. There will be enough situations left which will catch you by surprise and you should not find out that the next airport is a four hour ride away from your USA office after you settled down in the mountains of Montana.

In addition to generic factors to determine the ideal USA business location, you should try everything to get a business address within the United States which is likely to benefit the individual needs and characteristics of your business.

What factors should determine the "ideal" USA business location?

Factors which may influence your decision for the ideal USA business place could be for example any of the following:

• Being close to your clients: America does have a lot of economic cluster with a high concentration of certain industries. The automotive industry for example has a large cluster around Detroit; the IT industry used to be concentrated in California and so on.
• Cost of living: The overall cost-of-living does vary dramatically throughout different USA business places. This will definitely influence total business expenses such as personnel costs (including your own salary), infrastructure costs and so on.
• Tax situation and government control: Different states in the United States are competing for the best USA businesses by offering them tax breaks and/or less government control in how they can operate. Government control and Labor Union influence is for example far greater in California than in the state of Georgia ("right to work"-state).
• Economic perspectives: The economic situation and outlook in single states you may look at, should have an important influence on the decision on your final business location. As with other factors, economic outlooks are varying throughout the United States dramatically depending on your USA business location.
• Major airports in the United States: For many companies, doing business in the United States is characterized by a lot of air travel. If nationwide business is on your list, you should have your USA office close to a major national airport. Having such a convenient location can not only save money but also saves a lot of time and energy since those airports offer more direct flights to almost any city in the United States.
• A "good" city name in your USA business address: When selling your products to clients nationwide in the United States and/or Canada, it can be an advantage to have a location with the name of a big city in the office address. It could makes you and your business appear more professional if you are able to say that "we are located in Philadelphia" instead of "we are located in a-small-town-you-never-heard-about-but-close-to-Philadelphia". That does not mean that you have to have your office in the most expensive, fancy and representative part of a large city. Any location at the outskirts with a street address within city-limits is more than fine as long as you are able to keep the cities' street address.
• Other Factors: You should easily be able to complete this list with additional points relevant to your business.

USA Business Location and Traveling - Do Not Underestimate Air Travel

The largest airports in the United States are the so called "hub airports" of major airlines which are designed to serve smaller cities. Due to the nature of those airports, hubs will serve the highest number of cities and other hubs multiple times a day. There are for example around 30 flights being served every single day between Atlanta Hartsfield and Chicago O'Hare Airport (each way). If you need to travel and have the chance to get your USA office location established close to a hub airport, you will have the most convenient and cheapest options to get around all over the United States with ease.

The largest USA hub airports:

US Rank	Worldwide Rank	City	Airport Code	Total yearly passengers
1	1	Atlanta	ATL	79 086 792
2	2	Chicago	ORD	69 508 672
3	5	Los Angeles	LAX	54 982 838
4	6	Dallas/Ft Worth	DFW	53 253 607
5	10	Denver	DEN	37 505 138
6	11	Phoenix	PHX	37 412 165
7	12	Las Vegas	LAS	36 285 932
8	14	Houston	IAH	34 154 574
9	15	Minneapolis	MSP	33 201 860
10	16	Detroit	DTW	32 664 620
11	17	New York	JFK	31 732 371
12	20	Miami	MIA	29 595 618
13	21	Newark	EWR	29 431 061
14	22	San Francisco	SFO	29 313 271
15	23	Orlando	MCO	27 319 223
16	25	Seattle	SEA	26 755 888
17	30	Philadelphia	PHL	24 671 075

Large US airports and airport hubs Source: Airport Council International, 2003

Summary

There are many factors which could influence your decision on where to establish your USA business. The most important factors are of course those which are important to the nature of your business.

If you are in the planning phase of bringing your business to the United States, you should spare some time of your planning phase to structure various options in regards to your USA office location and select or exclude certain cities within the United States. Especially if you are a cultural outsider it is important to get a good base of information to support the right decision. Seattle for example is a great city, but it is a poor choice if most of your potential customers are located around the East Coast. Tampa in Florida is a great city, too. But if you have to fly dozens of times per year, you are maybe better off choosing a city with a large Hub Airport such as Atlanta, Chicago or Los Angeles.

About the Author

Ben Baier owns and runs www.myusabusiness.com. You can learn more on the 'about' section on the left within this website.

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