Fortune 500 companies are the 500 largest corporations in the United States ranked each year by their total revenue, as compiled and published by Fortune magazine.

Quick Scoop: What Are Fortune 500 Companies?

Think of the Fortune 500 as a yearly “power list” of big business in America.

Fortune magazine looks at companies’ revenues for the latest fiscal year and ranks the top 500 that operate in the U.S.

Key points

  • It’s an annual list of the 500 largest U.S. companies by revenue.
  • Published by Fortune magazine since 1955.
  • Includes both public and some private companies, as long as their revenues are publicly available.
  • Companies must be incorporated and operating in the U.S. and file regular, reliable financial reports.
  • Non‑profits are excluded; it’s focused on for‑profit businesses.

Why it matters

  • Being on the Fortune 500 signals size, financial strength, and influence in the U.S. economy.
  • It’s often used in marketing (“we work with Fortune 500 clients”) to convey credibility and scale.
  • Investors, job seekers, and partners use the list as a shortcut to find major players in different industries.

Brief origin story

  • Fortune introduced the list in 1955 to showcase the biggest American industrial corporations.
  • Originally focused on manufacturing, it was expanded in the 1990s to include services like finance, retail, and tech.
  • Today, it covers a wide range of sectors: technology, healthcare, energy, retail, financial services, and more.

Simple example

A company like a major retailer or tech giant with tens or hundreds of billions of dollars in annual revenue is likely to appear near the top of the Fortune 500, while smaller but still very large national brands may appear lower on the list.

TL;DR: Fortune 500 companies are the 500 biggest U.S.-based, for‑profit corporations ranked every year by their total revenue, in a list published by Fortune magazine.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.