Nearly Half of Fortune 500 Companies Were Founded by Immigrants or Their Children, New Study Finds

The economic contribution of immigrants to the United States is not a peripheral footnote in the country’s financial story. It is a central chapter. A new study from The Mendoza Law Firm, drawing on federal workforce data, small business research, and immigration statistics, has found that immigrants and their children are responsible for a disproportionately large share of American economic activity, from hourly wage employment to the founding of the nation’s most iconic corporations.

The headline figure is striking. In 2025, 46.2% of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children. These companies collectively generate trillions of dollars in annual revenue and employ millions of Americans, meaning that immigrant entrepreneurship is not simply a success story for individual families. It is a structural engine of national prosperity that supports jobs, innovation, and economic output across every sector of the U.S. economy.

At the workforce level, the contribution is equally foundational. Immigrants currently comprise 19% of the U.S. workforce, a share that reflects their integration across industries ranging from healthcare and technology to construction, agriculture, and logistics. This is not a marginal presence. It is an integral component of how the American labor market functions, particularly in sectors that face persistent shortages of domestic workers.

The homeownership data in the study adds a further economic dimension to the immigrant contribution. 51% of foreign-born households own their homes, reflecting not only personal financial stability but also a sustained investment in local housing markets and community economies. Between April 2024 and March 2025, foreign buyers accounted for significant purchase activity in key states: Florida led at 21% of foreign home purchases, followed by California at 15%, Texas at 10%, New York at 7%, and Arizona at 5%. Additional states including Hawaii, North Carolina, Michigan, New Jersey, and Illinois each captured roughly 3% of foreign buyer activity, demonstrating that immigrant homeownership is spreading economic investment well beyond traditional gateway markets.

The lawful permanent resident population underpinning this economic activity is large, established, and concentrated in the country’s most economically productive states. California leads the nation with more than 2.5 million lawful permanent residents, followed by New York, Florida, and Texas, each with over one million. These states are not simply population centers. They are economic powerhouses, and the immigrant populations within them are active participants in their growth. As of June 2025, 51.9 million immigrants were living in the United States, representing approximately 15.4% of the total population, the largest sustained immigrant population in the country’s history.

Despite these contributions, the study identifies a significant and growing structural barrier facing immigrant entrepreneurs. The Small Business Administration’s 2025 policy changes now require that 100% of a business’s owners and key management be U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents, effectively excluding visa holders, DACA recipients, and asylees from access to SBA lending programs. The result has been a 46% reduction in small business lending for foreign entrepreneurs, a policy outcome the study describes as the “SBA Lockout.”

The implications of this policy shift extend beyond the individuals directly affected. Immigrant business formation has historically been a significant source of job creation, innovation, and local economic activity. Restricting access to capital for a substantial segment of the immigrant entrepreneur population does not only affect those founders. It reduces the pipeline of new businesses, new jobs, and new economic activity that immigrant entrepreneurship has consistently delivered across decades.

Family stability reinforces the economic picture. 75% of children in immigrant households live with married parents, compared to 61% in U.S.-born families, a stability that supports educational achievement, workforce readiness, and the kind of intergenerational upward mobility that has defined immigrant economic success across American history.

Yet systemic delays continue to create a gap between the economic reality of immigrant life and its formal legal recognition. As of October 2025, more than 6.48 million immigration applications remained pending with USCIS, including over 200,000 employment-based cases and more than 1.6 million work authorization filings. These backlogs do not pause the economic contributions immigrants are already making, but they do create uncertainty, limit mobility, and slow the process by which immigrants can fully participate in civic and economic life.

The Mendoza Law Firm study makes clear that immigrants are not a burden on the American economy. They are among its most consistent and consequential contributors, and the data supports that conclusion at every level of economic activity, from the factory floor to the Fortune 500.