American companies have dominated global markets for some time, but in the past few years, experts have become less certain about the future of America’s economic power and influence as a result of new tariffs, export controls, and the worldwide backlash against them. However, even in uncertainty, U.S. stocks have remained strong, and stateside companies continue to grow and expand domestically and abroad.
To identify the top-performing companies in the U.S., TIME partnered with Statista to evaluate and rank the most prominent firms in the country based on employee satisfaction, financial performance, and sustainability transparency. Both public companies and private companies that report their financial and sustainability data were considered. The top 1000 companies were named to America’s Best Companies of 2026.
Methodology: How TIME and Statista Determined America’s Best Companies of 2026
While U.S. companies dominated TIME’s annual World’s Best Companies list in 2025, America’s Best Companies focuses more on the strength of financial performance over revenue growth. This explains why Apple, ranked no. 2 on this list, did not appear on World’s Best Companies of 2025—Apple had a slight revenue decrease between 2022 and 2024, the study period for that list. The tech giant has since resumed growth and is doing quite well now, says Jonathan Vincent, a data analyst at Statista. Because the list values sustainability in growth, companies that post strong revenues while reducing their carbon emissions, like Adobe (no. 7), also rose from their World ranks.
Despite the overall trend of tech dominance in the U.S., this year, some health care companies have broken into the top 10—weight-loss pill maker Eli Lilly at no. 5 and cancer treatment behemoth Merck at no. 9. Investment firm UBS wrote in an online research note on June 30 that the healthcare sector has consistently outperformed the S&P 500 due in part to healthcare coverage and access expansion for obesity drugs, as Medicare patients begin qualifying for them, oral pills draw in new users, and generics expand its reach to markets outside the U.S. The firm wrote that the pharmaceutical industry, which makes up a third of health care, is predicted to grow rapidly: “In fact, the S&P 500 Pharma index’s 7.1% year-to-date gain has outperformed the Magnificent 7, with GLP-1 drugs shifting the paradigm in obesity treatment.”
Led by recent positive clinical results from Lilly, Roche, and AstraZeneca, the $100 billion market for GLP-1 could potentially include other medical areas like cardiovascular, kidney, liver, arthritis, and sleep apnea disorders as the drugs evolve to treat not just diabetes and obesity, but all kinds of metabolic conditions.
In Q1 2026, Lilly reported a quarterly earning of $19.8 billion worldwide, up 56% from last year, with Mounjaro and Zepbound together accounting for $12.9 billion. The company is also continuing to test new therapies to maintain its lead in the metabolic health market; a cholesterol-lowering treatment it’s developing with Verve has shown promising early efficacy.
Merck reported Q1 2026 revenues of $16.3 billion led by its strong portfolio in oncology and animal health. “We’re in the midst of initial launches of over 20 new products,” said CEO Robert Davis on the earnings call in April, “almost all of which have blockbuster potential across a broad set of therapeutic areas.” The move to diversify and re-design their portfolio is timely as the company’s blockbuster cancer immunotherapy, Keytruda (which accounted for $8 billion of their Q1 revenue), has patents set to expire in 2028.
Healthcare is becoming a top field for new grads as well, with separate analyses and surveys from Goldman Sachs, Glassdoor, and National Society of High School Scholars in 2025 indicating that younger professionals are increasingly choosing jobs in healthcare over tech.
See the full list of America’s Best Companies of 2026 below:
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