Fortune 500

The Fortune 500 is a prestigious list of companies published every year by Fortune magazine. The Fortune 500 list ranks US companies by gross revenues. Fortune 500 companies must be US companies and publicly held. The gross revenues used to rank the Fortune 500 companies is the company's gross revenue for its previous fiscal year. The Fortune 500 was first published by Forbes magazine in 1955. There are other lists similar to the Fortune 500 list but the Fortune 500 list tends to be the most popular and revered. Fortune magazine also publishes the Fortune 100 and the Fortune 1000, which are based on the same ranking criteria as the Fortune 500. Other lists such as the Forbes Global 2000 (old Forbes 500) uses different criteria than the Fortune 500 to rank its top companies.