Hope many businesses are owned by Somalians in St. Paul and Minneapolis. My
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Executive summary
Yes — Somali Minnesotans own a substantial and visible number of businesses in Minneapolis and St. Paul: historic reporting and local research describe hundreds of Somali-owned commercial ventures in Minneapolis and an estimated 600 Somali-owned businesses in the state as of earlier studies, while contemporary data and reporting emphasize that tens of thousands of people of Somali descent live and work across the Twin Cities economy, fueling entrepreneurship and neighborhood commerce [1] [2] [3].
1. Somali entrepreneurship is long-established and concentrated in the Twin Cities
Somali arrivals to Minnesota over the past three decades helped build a dense pattern of small businesses and commercial corridors in Minneapolis–Saint Paul, with academic and local reporting noting that Somalis owned roughly 600 businesses statewide in mid-2000s estimates and that Minneapolis “hosts hundreds” of Somali-operated ventures — facts that anchor the claim that Somali business ownership is significant and locally concentrated [1] [4] [5].
2. Recent reporting confirms large community presence and broad economic roles
Contemporary journalism and local data reporting place tens of thousands of Somali-descent residents in the Twin Cities — sources cite about 80,000–84,000 Somali residents in the Minneapolis–St. Paul area in 2024–2025 — and describe Somali Minnesotans working across dozens of industries and job titles, often with a higher likelihood of self-employment, reinforcing that business ownership is a prominent economic pattern in the community [3] [6] [2] [7].
3. Business ownership revives neighborhoods and shows measurable economic impact
Multiple local studies and reporting credit Somali entrepreneurs with revitalizing commercial corridors such as parts of south Minneapolis, Nicollet Avenue and Lake Street, and the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, and state-level reporting places Somali Minnesotans’ annual income and tax contributions in visible terms (reports cite at least $500 million in income generated annually and roughly $67 million in state and local taxes), which underscores that Somali-owned businesses are not only numerous but economically consequential [5] [8].
4. Numbers vary by source and timeframe — caveats on precision
Estimates of how many businesses Somalis own differ by year, methodology and definition: the 600‑business figure comes from earlier state-level reporting and is often repeated in summaries of the community, while more recent pieces emphasize “hundreds” in Minneapolis and note diversity across industries rather than providing a single up-to-date business count; census and community-survey totals for people of Somali descent also vary (roughly 80,000–107,000 cited across sources), so precise, current counts of Somali‑owned businesses in each city are not available in the provided reporting [1] [3] [6] [9].
5. Political context and competing narratives shape coverage of Somali businesses
Media coverage in late 2025 intensified around federal immigration actions and political attacks on Somalis, with city leaders rallying in support of the community — that context can influence which facts get highlighted (economic contributions and entrepreneurship) and which are omitted; reporting shows Minneapolis and St. Paul officials publicly defending Somali residents amid federal enforcement reports, which signals an explicit local political agenda to protect the community even as national political narratives have targeted it [10] [6] [7].
6. What the available sources do and do not prove
The assembled sources collectively establish that Somali business ownership is a prominent and longstanding feature of Minneapolis and its Twin Cities suburbs — “many” is a defensible characterization based on repeated descriptions of “hundreds” of businesses and the community’s sizable population — but the precise, current number of Somali‑owned businesses by city (Minneapolis vs. St. Paul) is not settled in the provided material, and different datasets produce divergent population and business estimates [1] [2] [3] [11].