What Are Fortune 500 Companies?

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The Fortune 500 is a list of the largest 500 companies in the United States ranked by total revenue. Since 1955, Fortune magazine has published the annual list, and it is considered one of the most well-known corporate rankings. The Fortune 500 list can be found online and in the print edition of the magazine.

Companies on the list come from a variety of sectors, such as technology, retail, healthcare and finance. These companies are known as some of the most influential in the world, and the list includes both privately held and publicly traded companies.

Here’s how companies make the list, the history behind the ranking and the top 10 companies for the past two years.

What qualifies a Fortune 500 company?

To be eligible for the Fortune 500 list, a company must be for-profit, publicly traded or privately held, and be a U.S.-based entity with financial statements filed with a U.S. government agency. The company must have revenue that places it in the top 500 U.S. companies.

What’s the ranking methodology?

To create the list, the largest U.S. companies are ranked by total revenue for their respective fiscal years. For instance, the 2025 list uses numbers from 2024. Each company included must operate within the U.S. and have filed financial statements with a government agency for at least three quarters of the current fiscal year. Revenue numbers come from company filings and include consolidated subsidiaries, as well as revenue from discontinued operations (with an exception for spin-off companies that make the list — they’re excluded). Profits are shown after taxes and before preferred dividends of the company.

An editor supervises the preparation of the list, and an accounting specialist typically reviews and verifies company income statements and balance sheets.

The top 10 Fortune 500 companies

The top-ranked companies for 2025 and 2024 are listed below. Walmart has topped the list for the past 13 consecutive years.

Fortune 500 company revenues and profits

U.S. companies’ inclusion in the Fortune 500 is based on their revenue. At No. 500, Vulcan Materials is at the bottom of the list, and yet it still brought in a respectable $7.4 billion in revenue.

Here’s roughly how much revenue each of the top 10 Fortune 500 companies made in 2024, which was used to calculate Fortune’s 2025 list:

• Walmart: $681 billion
• Amazon: $638 billion
• UnitedHealth Group: $400 billion
• Apple: $391 billion
• CVS Health: $373 billion
• Berkshire Hathaway: $371 billion
• Alphabet: $350 billion
• ExxonMobil: $350 billion
• McKesson: $309 billion
• Cencora: $294 billion

Note that Fortune 500 companies must have noteworthy revenues to make the cut, but they don’t have to be profitable. For example, Walgreens Boots Alliance is No. 26 on the 2025 Fortune 500 list, but it posted a net loss of $8.6 billion for fiscal 2024.

Still, the top 500 U.S. companies profited a record-breaking $1.87 trillion in 2024 (though after adjusting for inflation, Fortune’s 2022 list made the most in its history). A good chunk came from Alphabet’s profits — over $100 billion, making it the first to reach that threshold.

The history of the Fortune 500 list

While the magazine was founded in 1929 with the start of the Great Depression, the first Fortune 500 list wasn’t published until 1955. Edgar P. Smith, the assistant managing editor of Fortune, is credited with the idea.

Originally, the list only included mining, manufacturing and energy industry companies. The top three companies in 1955 were General Motors (with annual revenue of $9.8 billion), ExxonMobil ($5.6 billion) and U.S. Steel ($3.2 billion).

In 1995, Fortune announced it would be including service companies, such as McDonald’s, Walmart and AT&T. Since the change, service companies have primarily made up the majority of the list. 

Changes to the Fortune 500 in 2025

In its June/July issue, Fortune noted that its flagship list of companies was remarkably stable in 2025. Around 95 percent of the companies on 2024’s list remained. 

The top 10 companies stayed the same for 2025 as well, though some of their placements changed. Newcomers include Ingram Micro Holding at No. 95, Ace Hardware at No. 429 and Oscar Health at No. 437.

Where can you find the Fortune 500 company list?

The Fortune 500 list is usually released around late May of each year and can be found online or in the June/July print issue. Non-subscribers can buy a single print copy if they prefer a physical version.

Bottom line

The Fortune 500 list is a comprehensive and influential guide to the current state of the American economy. Published annually by Fortune magazine, it ranks the top 500 companies in the United States by total revenue.

— Myriam Robinson-Puche contributed to an update of this article.