Veteran business benefits by state
124 verified benefits across 51 states — formation fee waivers, franchise tax exemptions, state veteran business certifications, and procurement set-asides. Every single one links to the statute or official program page it came from, with the date we checked it.
Published states
- Alaska2 programs
- Alabama3 programs
- ArizonaNo state program
- NevadaNo state program
- Arkansas3 programs
- California5 programs
- Connecticut3 programs
- District of Columbia1 program
- Delaware2 programs
- Florida5 programs
- Georgia4 programs
- HawaiiNo state program
- IdahoNo state program
- Illinois3 programs
- Colorado3 programs
- Indiana3 programs
- Iowa3 programs
- Kansas3 programs
- Kentucky2 programs
- Louisiana3 programs
- MaineNo state program
- Maryland3 programs
- Massachusetts4 programs
- Michigan3 programs
- Minnesota3 programs
- Mississippi1 program
- Missouri3 programs
- New Mexico3 programs
- MontanaNo state program
- Nebraska1 program
- New Hampshire1 program
- New Jersey4 programs
- New York4 programs
- North Carolina3 programs
- North DakotaNo state program
- Ohio3 programs
- Oklahoma3 programs
- Oregon3 programs
- Pennsylvania5 programs
- Rhode Island3 programs
- South CarolinaNo state program
- South DakotaNo state program
- Tennessee3 programs
- Texas6 programs
- Utah3 programs
- VermontNo state program
- Virginia4 programs
- Washington3 programs
- West Virginia3 programs
- WyomingNo state program
- Wisconsin4 programs
Browse by what you actually want
Most people arrive asking which states waive the filing fee, or which give a contracting preference worth bidding on. These are those lists. A state appears under a category only where we have a verified benefit of that type.
Fee waiver · 4 states
Tax exemption · 7 states
Contracting preference · 35 states
Grant · 5 states
Loan program · 3 states
License fee waiver · 5 states
Training & assistance · 8 states
Questions people actually ask
Which states waive business filing fees for veterans?
Four states have a verified fee waiver in our data, and Kentucky is the strongest: KRS 14A.2-165 waives the filing fee outright for veteran-owned businesses organised after 1 August 2018, and it keeps applying to amendments and restatements for the life of the company, not just at formation. Use the fee waiver and licence fee waiver groups on this page for the current list — we only count a state where we have read the statute or the agency page ourselves.
Which state has the largest veteran bid preference?
Connecticut, at 15% — but only for veteran-owned MICRO businesses, with a hard $3 million gross revenue ceiling. Minnesota follows at up to 12%, then Michigan, Kansas and New Mexico at 10%. Note New Mexico excludes federally funded contracts, and Connecticut's ceiling is a cliff rather than a taper.
Do all states have veteran business benefits?
No, and that is a finding rather than a gap in our research. Eleven states have no veteran business preference at all — Arizona, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming. Each of those pages shows the procurement code we checked and proves the absence, because a confirmed no saves you a week that a missing page does not.
Is a state "veterans preference" the same as a business preference?
Usually not, and this is the most common and expensive confusion in the subject. Most state veterans preference statutes are EMPLOYMENT law — points added to a public hiring exam, or a guaranteed interview. They do nothing for your bid. Idaho, Utah, South Dakota, North Dakota and Maine all have prominent preferences of that kind and no business preference at all.
How is this data verified?
Every benefit links to the statute, Secretary of State fee schedule, state department of veterans affairs page, or state procurement authority it came from, with the date we last checked it. Aggregators and law-firm marketing pages are used to find leads and are never cited as the source of record. If we could not confirm something against a primary source, it is not on the page.
How we source this
Every benefit is verified against a primary source: state statute text, a Secretary of State fee schedule, a state department of veterans affairs program page, or a state procurement authority. Aggregator sites and law-firm marketing pages are used to find leads and are never cited as the source of record.
If we could not confirm a benefit against a primary source, it is not on the page. That means our state pages are sometimes shorter than the competition's. It also means you will not drive to a county office to claim something that was repealed in 2019.
A few states are marked no state program. That is a finding, not a gap — it means we went looking for the specific statute that would create one and established that it is not there. Proving an absence takes longer than listing a benefit, and it is the one thing a scraper cannot do, because a scraper cannot tell the difference between a program that does not exist and one it failed to find.