Miss Grand USA is the official national beauty pageant in the United States responsible for selecting the nation's representative to the Miss Grand International competition.
The United States has participated in Miss Grand International since the pageant's inception in 2013. Under the management of Earth Pageant Productions from 2013 to 2015, the first two representatives were appointed to compete internationally without a national pageant for Miss Grand, while the third earned the title through the Miss Earth United States 2015. During this period, two representatives, Blair Griffith and Lauren Petersen, placed among the top 20 finalists in 2013 and 2015, respectively.
After Chantel Martínez, a New York-based Dominican-American fashion model, acquired the franchise in 2016, she organized the inaugural Miss Grand USA pageant to select the country's representative for the international competition. The event was held at Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Symphony Space in New York City, featuring 13 national finalists, with Michelle León of the host state being crowned the winner. León later finished as the fourth runner-up at the 2016 Miss Grand International contest in Las Vegas, Nevada. Later in 2018, Martínez scheduled the 2018 contest to be held on May 28 in New York,[15] but lost the franchise to Israel Silva and Hernan Rivera of H&I Grand Productions LLC, a Chicago-based event organizer that owned and organized the Miss Grand USA pageant from 2019 to 2023.
The franchise was subsequently transferred to the e-commerce company Protagonist Live LLC in early 2024, with former Miss Grand Ireland 2023, Rachel Slawson, serving as president under Iron Tiara LLC.
On December 6, 2024, Crown Legacy LLC assumed management of the franchise, while production continued under Protagonist Live LLC.
Since its establishment, the pageant has been canceled only once, in 2020, due to the significant increase in COVID-19 infections across the country. The organizer subsequently appointed Ghanaian American model Abena Appiah to represent the United States at the international competition in Thailand, where she won the title, becoming the first American representative to win Miss Grand International and the first Black contestant to do so.
First sending delegates in 2013 through designation, the official standalone national contest was established in 2016. The pageant promotes peace and non-violence under the international platform 'Stop the War and Violence'.
The United States achieved its first international victory when Abena Appiah was crowned Miss Grand International 2020, significantly boosting the pageant's profile across North America.
