Colorado ranks fourth among the 50 states in the latest results of an annual analysis of the best and worst places to start businesses.

WalletHub, a personal finance website, compared all 50 states for business environment, access to resources and business costs.  A total of 27 metrics were used to evaluate those factors — everything from average work week, five-year small business survival rate and startups per capita to  corporate taxes, office space affordability and proportion of college-education population.

Colorado moved from 10th in the 2022 ranking to fourth in the 2023 ranking with an overall score of 56.14 out of a possible 100.

Colorado ranked fourth for business environment and seventh for access to resources, but 35th for business costs.

Colorado ranked first in the analysis for the amount of venture investment per capita, second for the most educated population, seventh for average growth in the number of small businesses, 18th for the average length of the work week in hours and 24th for the availability of human capital.

Grand Junction ranked 33rd in a 2022 WalletHub analysis of the best and worst small cities to start a business.

Denver ranked sixth, Colorado Springs ninth and Aurora 12th in a 2022 analysis of the best and worst large cities to start a business.

In the 2023 analysis of states, Utah was first overall with the top ranking for access to resources. Utah ranked seventh for business environment and 32nd for business costs. Florida ranked second, followed by Texas, Colorado and Idaho. Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Oklahoma and California rounded out the top 10.

Alaska ranked as the worst state in which to start a business, followed by Connecticut, West Virginia, New Jersey and Rhode Island. Wyoming, Pennsylvania, North Dakota, Virginia, Maryland and Missouri rounded out the bottom 10.

The report is available online at https://wallethub.com/edu/best-states-to-start-a-business/36934.