[2] The business route, which starts as Madison Street, begins as a two-lane road at an acute intersection with US 701 (J.K. Powell Boulevard) on the southern edge of the city.

US 701 Business continues north on Pinckney Street, which passes through another residential neighborhood before leaving the city at its overpass of the US 74 and US 76 freeway.

The two-lane highway heads northeast into Bladen County and becomes College Street, which veers north and parallels US 701 three blocks to the east as it enters the town of Clarkton.

US 701 Business intersects NC 211 (Green Street) and has a grade crossing of CSX's Wilmington Subdivision.

[2] The business route, which passes downtown Clinton to the east, begins at a partial cloverleaf interchange with Faircloth Freeway, which heads southeast as US 421 and northwest with both US 701 and US 421.

The business route intersects NC 24 (Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard) and runs concurrently with the state highway through an industrial area, where they have a grade crossing of a CSX rail spur.

Northeast of downtown, the highway meets the southern end of NC 403 (College Street).

It directs truck traffic onto US 501, South Carolina Highway 544 Connector (Red Hill 1) (SC 544 Conn.), US 501 Business (US 501 Bus.

It is loosely signed, frequently in Conway and Red Hill, and infrequently outside the city limits of both locales.

The highway has a concurrency with US 501 on Church Street at the northern end of the US 501/US 701 concurrency at 16th Avenue, then makes a right turn onto Mill Pond Road, which travels northeast until curving toward the east and terminating at the intersection of US 701 (Main Street) and Sherwood Drive.