5 midsize U.S. cities driving small-business growth

Fast Company

4 days ago

BY Inc.
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Midsize cities are where the growth is. That's according to new report from BILL, the payments management company used by nearly half a million small and medium-size businesses and that processes around 1% of U.S. GDP. The report analyzed business-to-business accounts payable spending of companies with between 2 and 200 employees from the largest 342 U.S. cities with a population of 100,000 or more. Here's what to know:
While payments per company from large cities grew 11% year-over-year during the 12-month period ending May 2025, midsize cities have grown 32% over the same period. Since the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020, the growth in payments per company from midsize cities is two times that of large cities. While growth in midsize cities has increased by 200%, large cities growth escalated by just 113%.
Since January 2025, one month before the introduction of new tariffs, midsize cities have outpaced payments growth from large cities by nearly three times, with payments in large cities growing by 1.9% and midsize cities growing 5.5% in payment volume per business.
Below are the five U.S. cities with the fastest growing payments this year. All five are midsize cites.
1. Mesquite, Texas
2. El Monte, California
3. South Fulton, Georgia
4. Quincy, Massachusetts
5. Broken Arrow, Oklahoma
BILL Chief Economist Fergus McCormick says he's never seen this trend before. 'Through the data from May, we're seeing really strong growth and resilience among SMBs in midsize cities,' he says. 'That's the key message.'
The South and West regions of the U.S. have seen the fastest payments growth by city. This trend in data follows the exodus of people from larger cities during Covid-19, when an estimated 2 million migrated to the South and 957,000 to the West. According to the report, midsize cities in California and Texas saw the highest payments growth since May 2024. Those two states are also home to nine of the 25 fastest-growing cities this year, all midsize.
Other factors drawing people to midsize cities include a lower cost of living, stronger schools, safer neighborhoods and the increased regularity of working remotely.
McCormick says we are truly in the era of the midsize city. 'This payments data is a leading indicator of economic activity across the United States,' he says. 'To the extent that we can help people understand the trends in economic activity, that is absolute gold.'
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