California isn’t the only state with global bragging rights for its business heft.

To grade the economies of the 50 states and the District of Columbia on a global scorecard, my trusty spreadsheet reviewed two recently updated sets of 2026 data on gross domestic product, a broad measure of business output and consumer spending.

Mid-year results from the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis were compared with full-year estimates for 191 nations from the International Monetary Fund. To level the playing field for this scorecard, GDP was measured in U.S. dollars and was not adjusted for inflation.

By this math, California, the nation’s largest economy with a $4.5 trillion GDP, can boast that it would rank No. 4 globally by total size if it were graded as a nation. The Golden State is just ahead of Japan and trails only the U.S., China and Germany.

By the same vanity metric, four other states rank among the world’s top 20.

The nation’s No. 2 state for business by GDP, Texas at $3.1 trillion, ranks No. 8 globally, or roughly the size of the Russian economy.

Then comes New York at $2.6 trillion, ranking No. 11 globally, or roughly the size of Canada. Florida is No. 3 at $1.9 trillion, ranking No. 16, or an economy on par with Turkey. And Illinois, with a GDP of $1.3 trillion, ranks No. 20. That’s roughly Switzerland’s size.

So, in a year when there’s added focus on global events – militarily, economically and politically – these rankings offer a hint of what’s at stake in business terms, even at the state level.

Small fry

For another perspective, if not fun, ponder the nation’s smallest economies on the same worldwide scorecard:

– No. 51 Vermont: $52 billion GDP, ranking No. 101 vs. 191 economies worldwide, or roughly the size of Estonia.

– No. 50 Wyoming: $57 billion GDP, No. 97 globally, or roughly Macao.

– No. 49 Alaska: $79 billion GDP, No. 90 globally, or roughly Uganda.

– No. 48 Montana: $86 billion GDP, No. 88 globally, or roughly Myanmar.

– No. 47 South Dakota: $86 billion GDP, No. 88 globally, or roughly Myanmar.

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