Freelancer Business Growth Patterns Over Time

This table groups the 30 largest U.S. metro areas by how freelancer density changed between 2019 and 2023. Freelancer densityis measured as freelancer businesses per 1,000 residents, which helps show whether freelancers became a larger or smaller part of each metro’s local economy.

¹ Growth level summarizes each metro’s overall change in freelancer business density from 2019 to 2023.
 ² Growth pattern is based on year-over-year changes in freelancer business density across 2019–2020, 2020–2021, 2021–2022, and 2022–2023.
High-growth metros showed strong density gains over the full period. Moderate-growth metros showed positive but less consistent gains, including places where growth flattened or dipped by 2023. Low-growth metros showed weaker recovery, slower gains, or declining density.
Categories are interpretive groupings used to summarize timing patterns, not separate index scores. See more in methodology.
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