There’s a story being written about women in the Portland metro right now, and it’s a good one.

Not a perfect one — the data is honest about the barriers that remain. But if you look at where we’ve come and what we’re building, there’s something genuinely worth noting: women in this region are showing up, starting things, leading things, and doing it in growing numbers.

And Oregon? Oregon ranks #1 in the country for women-owned businesses, according to the 2025 Wells Fargo Impact of Women-Owned Businesses report — ahead of every other state in the nation. That’s not an accident — that’s a culture.

The Numbers Behind the Momentum

The Portland Metro Chamber’s newly released 2026 State of Women in the Portland Metro Economy gives us a clear look at what’s actually happening on the ground, and several of the findings are worth sitting with. (Image credit above: Portland Metro Chamber).

Workforce participation for women with young children under the age of 6 has increased by 10 percentage points since 2014 — from 67 percent to 77 percent. That’s a meaningful shift, driven by greater workplace flexibility, expanded childcare access, and something harder to measure: a generation of women who have decided they don’t have to choose.

The share of women-owned businesses in the Portland metro has grown from 22 percent in 2017 to 25 percent in 2023 — and that growth is happening across industries and backgrounds. Oregon saw a 19.4% growth in women-owned firm counts from 2019 to 2024, and women-owned businesses now make up 40.7% of all companies in the state — above the national average of 39.2%.

Meanwhile, Oregon’s state legislature is now 45 percent women — compared to just 33 percent nationally. Women aren’t just building businesses here. They’re shaping policy, leading institutions, and setting the terms.

Women CEO representation in publicly traded Oregon companies increased from just 1 woman in 2015 to 7 women in 2024 — a rise from 2 to 18 percent of those CEO seats. And notably, those women have stayed — demonstrating sustained leadership, not just token appointments.

What Growing Businesses Actually Need

Here’s what I notice when I read this report: 99 percent of women-owned businesses are small businesses with fewer than 50 employees. Nearly every woman building a business in Portland is building it at the scale most of us recognize from our own lives — the consultant, the creative, the coach, the founder in her first few years, the remote employee who left a big company to do something of her own.

These women aren’t running operations with dedicated offices and IT departments. They’re doing focused, ambitious work from wherever they can find the right conditions for it. And those conditions matter more than we talk about.

Research is clear that the environment where you work affects how well you work… the energy in a room, the presence of other people who get it, and the boundary between home and professional life that a dedicated workspace creates. These aren’t luxuries. For a solopreneur or small business owner, they’re infrastructure.

Wells Fargo’s report specifically calls out the importance of developing ecosystems, coworking spaces, and business incubators that meet the needs of women-owned businesses as a direct recommendation for accelerating growth. That infrastructure matters — because when women have what they need to do their best work, they do extraordinary things.

This Is What We Built VIDA For

VIDA Coworking is women-owned — and it’s the only coworking space in the Portland area designed from the ground up to meet the needs of women’s lives. We have two locations in the Portland metro — Northeast Portland and on the westside, in Beaverton — and a community of over 350 members who are living exactly this story. Solopreneurs. Remote workers. Small business owners. Women building and leading amazing things.

What they come here for isn’t just a desk. It’s the sense that they’re doing this alongside people who understand the particular combination of ambition, responsibility, and creativity it takes to build a professional life that works on your own terms. It’s the focus that comes from being somewhere that was designed — intentionally, from the start — with women’s work in mind.

If Oregon is the best state in the country to build a women-owned business, Portland is a pretty good place to start.

Come see what we’ve made for you!

Explore VIDA Coworking memberships →

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Sources: 2026 State of Women in the Portland Metro Economy, Portland Metro Chamber. The 2025 Impact of Women-Owned Businesses: Key figures on women entrepreneurs by geography, Wells Fargo.