SelectUSA Software and Information Technology Industry
Industry Overview
The U.S. computer systems and design related services industry had added $489.2 billion in value to the U.S economy in 2023. In the same year, data processing, internet publishing, and other information services added $469.4 billion in value to the U.S. economy. According to CompTIA, there are an estimated 585,000 software and IT services companies in the United States. The tech industry includes software publishers, suppliers of custom computer programming services, computer systems design firms, and facilities management companies. The industry draws on a highly educated and skilled U.S. workforce, including 2.2 million software and web developers. The tech industry continues to grow, with tech employment expected to reach 6.6 million in 2024.
U.S. software firms operate a mature, harmonized market and have a reputation for producing reliable and effective solutions that accelerate quickly to the marketplace. International companies in the industry have shown a keen interest in the U.S. market because of its strong intellectual property rights laws and enforcement. U.S. companies lead the world’s packaged and custom software markets and are competitive in nearly all other market segments with a stable overseas market share.
This industry includes large and small businesses that can design, produce, and distribute packaged software. In 2023, there was almost $85.5 million foreign direct investment in the software publishing industry. As of 2022, there were 88,400 workers employed in foreign-owned businesses in the software publishing industry. Across the industry, there were 17,438 establishments in 2022.
There were 17,539 establishments in the United States in the data processing, hosting, and related services industry in 2022. As of mid-2024, an estimated 495,000 workers were employed in the industry and in 2022, there were 22,100 workers employed by foreign-owned businesses in the data processing, hosting, and related services industry.
The computer systems design and related services industry, has the most companies of the three highlighted subsectors with 145,211 establishments in 2022. The most recent employment estimates also place it as the largest source of employment in the IT and software sector with over 2.5 million employees in mid-2024. In 2023, foreign direct investment into this industry reached $102.8 billion, and 172,200 workers were employed by foreign-owned businesses in the computer systems design and related services industry as of 2022.
Explore the impact of foreign direct investment on U.S. jobs, exports, and innovation in the software and information technology industry.
The Investor Guide is a high-level view of everything from taxes to immigration and workforce to business structures.
SelectUSA has created several dashboards to help analyze key FDI data from a variety of sources.
