Foreign Money Is Flowing Into Florida. A New Study Shows Just How Much.

It is easy to think of Florida’s economy in familiar terms — tourism, real estate, and retirees. What that shorthand misses is the $3.7 billion in foreign direct investment that landed in the state in 2024, placing Florida seventh in the nation and ahead of New York, Virginia, and Washington state in the global competition for international capital.

That ranking comes from a new study by Becker & Poliakoff, a law firm headquartered in Fort Lauderdale with offices across the country, that combed through the most recent full-year federal data to map where foreign investment is actually going — and why the answer matters far beyond any single state’s balance sheet.

The national backdrop is striking. The United States attracted $279 billion in foreign direct investment in 2024, more than double China’s $116 billion. That margin is not just an economic scorecard. It shapes dollar dominance, gives Washington leverage to impose sanctions, and supports 15 million American jobs at foreign-owned companies operating on U.S. soil.

For Florida, the seventh-place national ranking reflects is likely to increase in the years ahead.   Low taxes, no state income tax, a gateway to Latin America, and an aggressively business-friendly regulatory environment have made Florida one of the most attractive relocation destinations in the country for both companies and capital over the past several years. 

Financial firms fleeing New York, tech companies expanding beyond Silicon Valley, and manufacturers drawn by competitive operating costs have all accelerated the state’s economic diversification. As that business base deepens and matures, the expectation among economic development officials is that FDI totals will follow — more established industry clusters mean more supply chain investment, more foreign partnerships, and ultimately more jobs for Floridians at companies with global backing. 

Texas topped the national rankings at $22.8 billion, fueled heavily by Samsung’s $45 billion semiconductor expansion. Georgia followed at $16.3 billion on the strength of Hyundai and Kia’s electric vehicle manufacturing push — a remarkable result for the eighth most populous state in the country. California placed third at $12.9 billion, with Ohio, North Carolina, and Massachusetts filling out the next three spots before Florida’s seventh-place finish.

The Becker & Poliakoff data also surfaces a finding that reframes the entire conversation about what FDI success looks like. South Carolina — not Texas, not California — leads the nation in the share of jobs tied to majority foreign-owned companies, at 8 percent. One in every 12 jobs in that state exists because a foreign company decided to build something there. It is a reminder that the dollar rankings and the human impact rankings do not always point to the same place.

Globally, Japan has quietly become the largest foreign investor in the United States, with a cumulative position that grew from $694 billion in 2020 to $819 billion in 2024, just ahead of Canada’s $812 billion. Manufacturing as a sector holds a $2.4 trillion cumulative FDI position nationally — more than double any other category — signaling that the world’s capital allocators are making long bets on American industrial capacity.