What Is Nashville’s Economy Based on?

February 19, 2026

Nashville’s economy has three anchors: healthcare, music/entertainment, and a fast-growing tech sector. These are supported by significant automotive manufacturing in the broader metro and a logistics industry that benefits from the city’s geographic position at the center of the eastern United States.

Healthcare: The Foundation

Nashville is the healthcare capital of the United States by industry concentration. More than 500 healthcare companies operate in the Nashville metro, including 17 publicly traded ones. Approximately 126,000 people work directly in healthcare in Davidson County.

The industry’s anchor is HCA Healthcare, one of the largest for-profit hospital systems in the world, headquartered in Nashville. Vanderbilt University Medical Center, with 28,300-plus employees, is the single largest employer in the city. Other major healthcare companies headquartered here include Community Health Systems, Envision Healthcare, and dozens of specialized healthcare services firms.

The pattern is self-reinforcing: healthcare companies cluster in Nashville because the talent pipeline (Vanderbilt Medical School, Meharry Medical College) is here, the regulatory expertise is here, and the deal-making networks are here. Healthcare startups choose Nashville for the same reason tech startups historically chose Silicon Valley.

Music and Entertainment

The music industry generates roughly $10 billion annually for the Nashville economy in direct and indirect impact. The country music ecosystem alone, recording, publishing, touring, management, merchandise, employs tens of thousands. But Nashville’s music economy is broader than country: the city has 180-plus recording studios, major publishing offices for Sony Music Publishing and Universal Music Publishing, and a session musician community of unparalleled depth.

Tourism tied to music generates $11.2 billion in visitor spending annually (2024 record), supporting 73,000 hospitality and entertainment jobs. The Grand Ole Opry, Ryman Auditorium, Country Music Hall of Fame, and Broadway honky-tonks collectively form a tourism economy that is unusually concentrated for a mid-size city.

Technology

The tech sector is growing faster than any other piece of Nashville’s economy. Oracle announced in 2024 that its Nashville riverfront campus will become its world headquarters when it opens, projected by 2030, with a commitment of 8,500 jobs by 2031 and a $1.2–1.4 billion investment. Amazon operates more than one million square feet of office space in Nashville and selected the city for its Operations Center of Excellence. Apple, AllianceBernstein, and iHeartMedia have all made major Nashville commitments.

The Nashville Entrepreneur Center and a growing constellation of venture-backed startups have built a startup ecosystem that, while not comparable to San Francisco or New York, is now recognized nationally. The unemployment rate in Nashville (2.9% in 2024) reflects a labor market with more job openings than available workers, roughly 47,000 more open positions than unemployed workers.

Automotive and Manufacturing

Nissan North America has its US headquarters in Smyrna, just east of Nashville. General Motors operates a large Spring Hill assembly plant 30 miles south. Bridgestone Americas is headquartered in downtown Nashville. The broader Middle Tennessee automotive cluster supports tens of thousands of supplier and service jobs and accounts for substantial export revenue.

Logistics and Distribution

Nashville’s geographic position, within a day’s drive of 75% of the US population, intersected by I-40, I-65, and I-24, makes it a natural logistics hub. Amazon’s presence here is partly logistics. Major distribution centers operate throughout the metro.

The Numbers

  • Metro GDP: approximately $187 billion (2024)
  • Employment growth: 2% annually (double the national rate of 1.4%)
  • Jobs added in 2024: 32,000+
  • Nashville’s share of Tennessee GDP: roughly 37%

Sources

  • Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, Regional Economic Report 2024
  • Bureau of Economic Analysis, GDP by metropolitan area
  • Nashville Health Care Council, industry data 2024
  • Oracle Corporation, Nashville headquarters announcement
  • Amazon corporate press releases, Nashville operations
  • Bureau of Labor Statistics, local area unemployment statistics 2024

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