Texas’s Competitive Edge

The Texas state government has undertaken a multi-pronged approach to reshape the state’s competitiveness and economic development landscape. Over the past decade, the state has combined tax advantages, legal modernization, workforce growth, and aggressive economic development tools to attract headquarters, talent, and capital. The following analysis outlines how these factors are reshaping corporate decision making — and what that shift means for New York.

Relocations and Headcount Drift

• In 2024, Texas surpassed New York as the state with the most financial services employees, excluding insurance and real estate.¹
  

• According to the Texas Economic Development & Tourism Office, 314 companies moved their headquarters to Texas between 2015 and 2024.²

  • Almost half — 156 companies — of these companies moved from California. New York is the next highest with 23 relocations. (See Appendix with details on companies relocating from New York to Texas.)

  • The top reasons for relocations are better business climates and consumer bases, growth opportunities, real estate costs, and labor availability.³
    
    

• Several financial services companies have grown their operations and headcounts in Texas while maintaining their operations in states such as New York.

  • Wells Fargo opened a new Dallas campus in 2025, increasing office capacity by 1,500 employees.⁴

  • In 2024, JPMorgan Chase announced that it employed more people in Texas than in any other state. In 2025, JPMorgan Chase announced a new Fort Worth office that will double the city’s employee capacity by 2027.⁵
    
    

• Financial services recruitment in Texas surpassed New York’s with 9% more job postings in 2025.⁶
  

• While New York’s financial services industry remains more productive — generating $330 billion in gross regional product (GRP) in 2024, 71% more than Texas — Texas’s financial services sector grew faster over the decade, with GRP rising 121% compared to New York’s 72%.⁷

Texas Stock Exchange, NYSE-Texas, and Nasdaq Texas

• The Texas Stock Exchange (TXSE) received approval in September 2025 and plans to launch by late 2026. TXSE is positioning itself as a more issuer-friendly and lower-cost exchange, alongside a single-tier listing model, in contrast to the multi-tier market structures of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and Nasdaq.⁸
  

• TXSE has attracted more than $250 million in startup capital to date, with backing from major financial institutions including Citadel Securities, BlackRock, and Charles Schwab. In October 2025, JPMorgan Chase led a roughly $90 million funding round and joined TXSE Group as a strategic investor.⁹
  

• In February 2025, the NYSE launched NYSE-Texas, a fully online equities exchange based in Dallas. In November 2025, Nasdaq announced plans to launch Nasdaq Texas, which is expected to become operational in 2026.¹⁰

Selected Texas Economic Development Incentives

Texas uses tailored incentives to attract relocation and investments into the state. Programs like the Texas Enterprise Fund, the Semiconductor Innovation Fund, and the Texas Jobs, Energy, Technology, and Innovation program provide companies with deal-closing grants and tax breaks to secure major investments and job opportunities in Texas over other states.

Texas Enterprise Fund

• Texas created the Texas Enterprise Fund (TEF) in 2003, which provides a final-stage incentive to close deals on companies considering projects in both Texas and other states if Texas is chosen as the project site.¹¹

  • Between 2003 and 2024, TEF has funded 213 projects, awarded over $878 million in state funds for a committed capital investment total of $64 billion. Participating companies have committed to creating over 127,000 new jobs.

  • Between 2004 and 2025, 20 projects in the financial services industry received $109 million in TEF grants and returned $1.6 billion in capital investments and created over 22,000 jobs.¹²

The Texas Semiconductor Innovation Fund

• In 2023, Governor Abbott established the Texas Semiconductor Innovation Fund (TSIF) to support companies and higher‑education institutions in Texas by promoting semiconductor research, design, and manufacturing, encouraging capital investment and job creation, and strengthening the state’s semiconductor workforce pipeline.¹³

  • The semiconductor industry is critical to the U.S. economy’s future; the industry is expected to create 3.9 million jobs between 2023 and 2033, more than any other single industry over this period.¹⁴
    

• In September 2025, Samsung received a $250 million TSIF grant to expand its plant in Taylor, TX which will generate more than $4.73 billion in capital investments. Samsung reported that it had considered New York, but chose Texas due to local government support, among other factors.¹⁵

Texas Jobs, Energy, Technology, and Innovation Program

• In 2024, the Texas Jobs, Energy, Technology, and Innovation (JETI) program was launched to attract large, capital-intensive economic development projects to the state. As of February 2026, 15 companies have active JETI applications.¹⁶
  

• Rather than receiving grants like TEF and TSIF awards, companies receive a 10-year 50% cap on school district maintenance & operations tax. If companies are in a federally designated Opportunity Zone this cap is raised to 75%.

Incorporating In Texas and the Texas Business Court

New legal changes — such as the Texas Business Court and updated legal codes — also make the state more appealing for corporations. Combined with no personal or traditional corporate income tax (instead relying on the Texas franchise tax), these factors make Texas a strong draw for growing businesses.

• Texas recently amended its legal system in ways that mirror features long associated with Delaware’s business friendly framework, the foremost state in business and private equity incorporation (Delaware is the legal home to around two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies and over two million business entities).¹⁷
  

• Delaware’s success comes from its tax-friendly environment, like Texas's, and from the Delaware Court of Chancery. The court has jurisdiction over business disputes in equity, including fiduciary duty and corporate governance matters that commonly arise in mergers and acquisitions.¹⁸ Because the court is staffed by expert corporate law judges and offers a deep, well-developed body of precedent, companies often incorporate in Delaware so that inter-corporate disputes are governed by Delaware law.¹⁹
  

• In 2023, the Texas Legislature created the Texas Business Court as part of a broader effort to compete with Delaware by providing a specialized forum for complex, high-value business disputes. The court has limited, statute-defined jurisdiction and is designed to streamline commercial litigation, promote judicial expertise, and encourage the issuance of written opinions that contribute to a more predictable body of Texas business law, drawing inspiration from Delaware’s Court of Chancery.²⁰
  

• In 2025, Texas changed its business laws to be more favorable to companies and their leaders. The new rules make it harder for shareholders to successfully sue directors or executives unless they can clearly show serious wrongdoing, such as intentional fraud or knowing violations of the law. Compared with Delaware, these changes give corporate leaders greater legal protection and make certain shareholder lawsuits easier to dismiss.²¹
  

• Texas law now allows certain corporations, under specified conditions, to include jury trial waivers in their governing documents. A hallmark of Delaware’s Court of Chancery is the absence of jury trials, leaving the decisions up to judges experienced in corporate law.²²
  

• Texas law now allows certain public companies to require shareholders to own a significant amount of stock before submitting proposals, effectively limiting proposals from small or activist investors. Delaware does not provide a similar state-law mechanism, and shareholder proposals there remain largely governed by federal SEC rules.²³

Corporate Income Taxes: New York vs. Texas

Legislators in New York state are considering increasing the state’s top corporate income tax rate from 7.25% to 11.5%. New York is already ranked last nationally for tax competitiveness and is consistently ranked among the bottom states for starting a small business and for small business growth.²⁴

Figure 1 presents the top corporate income tax rates in New York City and Texas, alongside the proposed marginal tax rate if New York state were to raise its state corporate income tax rate to 11.5%.