Top 10 US States by TTB Alcohol Permit Volume
Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) permit data ranking US states by total count of active federal Basic Permits across wineries, distilleries, importers, and wholesalers. Draws current numbers directly from the states dataset.
Research period:
Research question
Across the 50 US states plus DC and Puerto Rico, which states hold the largest absolute volume of active TTB alcohol permits, and how is that volume distributed across the winery, distillery, importer, and wholesaler permit classes?
Methodology
At render time we query the PlainAlcohol states table for state, total_producers, and the four permit-class counts - winery_count, distillery_count, importer_count, and wholesaler_count - rank by total_producers descending, and return the top 10. Every number on this page is read live from the database; none is hardcoded.
The underlying data is the TTB "List of Permittees," the federal registry of active FAA Basic Permits released by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau through its FOIA reading room (published April 2025, public domain). Each row is a state's count of active permits in each class. A state's total_producers is the sum of its four class counts.
Coverage: 50 states plus DC and Puerto Rico (52 rows). The registry covers wineries, distilleries, importers, and wholesalers. It does not cover breweries, breweries file a Brewer's Notice under the Internal Revenue Code, which the TTB does not publish (IRC §6103) - so no brewery figure appears anywhere on this site.
A permit is an administrative record, not a production figure: it shows that a business is federally licensed, not how much it makes or sells. The data is a point-in-time snapshot of active permits and carries no issue dates, so it cannot be read as a year-over-year trend.
Reproducibility: every figure on this page is generated directly from the current dataset and traces back to a specific source record, documented on the methodology page.
See the methodology page for the full source detail.
Top 10 US States by TTB Alcohol Producer Permit Volume
Live data, current as of the most recent source-data refresh
The ranked top 10
Every row below reflects the current the TTB dataset and updates automatically the next time we refresh it.
| # | State | Active permits | Wineries | Distilleries | Importers | Wholesalers |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | California | 20,928 | 6,399 | 561 | 4,659 | 9,309 |
| 2 | Florida | 5,845 | 211 | 197 | 2,775 | 2,662 |
| 3 | New York | 5,836 | 843 | 344 | 1,950 | 2,699 |
| 4 | Texas | 5,108 | 1,009 | 326 | 1,649 | 2,124 |
| 5 | Washington | 4,121 | 1,422 | 239 | 558 | 1,902 |
| 6 | Oregon | 2,953 | 995 | 157 | 350 | 1,451 |
| 7 | Pennsylvania | 2,428 | 619 | 320 | 489 | 1,000 |
| 8 | Illinois | 2,309 | 204 | 115 | 854 | 1,136 |
| 9 | Virginia | 2,005 | 637 | 155 | 500 | 713 |
| 10 | North Carolina | 1,899 | 307 | 185 | 424 | 983 |
Source: U.S. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, TTB Public Permit Registry. Values are current as of our most recent the TTB data refresh. U.S. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, TTB Public Permit Registry. Values are current as of our most recent the TTB data refresh.
Findings
Top entity in the ranking
The top-ranked record in this dataset is California, with a value of 20,928 on the Active permits column. The full top-10 set is rendered in the table above. Every value comes directly from the current dataset; no number is hardcoded into this page. When the TTB publishes a revision, the ranking and the prose around it update automatically.
Distribution shape
The gap between the top-ranked record (20,928) and the 10th-ranked record (1,899) characterizes how concentrated the top of the distribution is. Where the top value is many multiples of the median value of the visible set, the population is highly concentrated, a small number of entities accumulate the bulk of the measured quantity. Where the top and bottom of the visible set are close together, the distribution is relatively flat across the top end. The full distribution beyond this top-10 cut is summarized in the aggregate context section below and explored in the linked entity profiles.
Aggregate context
Across the full population behind this ranking, here are the summary statistics: how many records exist in total, the sum of the ranking metric across all qualifying records, and the mean per-record value. The methodology page documents the exact filter applied (records with null or zero values on the ranking metric are excluded). This aggregate row is computed from the same dataset that powers the ranking above.
Source provenance
The records in this ranking originate from U.S. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, specifically the TTB Public Permit Registry. PlainAlcohol ingests each new release from the TTB and republishes the figures here automatically, so this page always reflects the current dataset rather than a fixed snapshot. The methodology page documents the source URL, the vintage date, and the transformation steps applied during ETL.
Why this ranking matters
Rankings like this one let a reader scan a population quickly and spot concentration and outliers. The state pages linked from each row give the full per-state context: the breakdown by permit class and the named permit holders on file. The methodology page explains how the registry defines each permit class.
What this analysis cannot tell us
These counts reflect active FAA Basic Permits in the TTB List of Permittees. A permit means the holder has met federal eligibility to produce, import, or wholesale beverage alcohol; it does not indicate production volume, revenue, market share, or whether the business is currently operating, some permits stay active while a business is dormant. The registry covers wineries, distilleries, importers, and wholesalers only. It does not include breweries, which operate under a separate Brewer's Notice that the TTB does not release publicly, so no brewery figures appear here. This ranking is by absolute count and is not adjusted for state population; for fairer comparison, read it alongside the per-capita ranking, where small-population states rise.
Secondary cut from the same source
Top 10 states ranked by bonded winery permit count alone
Sources
- Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) - Public permit registry - https://www.ttb.gov/permit-online
- TTB Public Information Resource, basic permit data - https://www.ttb.gov/foia/frl