Industry & Market Data

Cleaning Business Statistics by State (2026)

The U.S. has more than 1,163,726 cleaning businesses, and 94% are solo operators, the highest of any home-service trade. They employ over 1,088,193 people at an average of $30,089 per year. We ranked all 50 states plus D.C. on business count, density, employment, and pay using U.S. Census data. Florida leads on both count and density.

Ihor Lavrenenko

By · Founder, Smarfle

Published June 24, 2026 · Data current as of 2023-2024

Smarfle

1,163,726

Cleaning businesses

94%

Solo operators

$30,089

Avg annual pay

+11%

Growth since 2019

Key findings

  • The U.S. has roughly 1,163,726 cleaning businesses (67,799 with employees, 1,095,927 solo), employing more than 1,088,193 people.
  • About 94% are solo operators, the highest solo share of any home-service trade. Cleaning has the lowest barrier to entry: low startup cost, no license in most states.
  • The average cleaning worker earns about $30,089/year (the lowest of the trades), ranging from $20,979 (Mississippi) to $43,343 (Alaska).
  • Florida has the most cleaning businesses (173,146), ahead of Texas and California.
  • By density, Florida leads at 74.1 businesses per 10,000 residents, far ahead of Georgia and Mississippi. The Sun Belt dominates.

Cleaning businesses, mapped

Over 1.16 million firms, more than the other three trades here combined. Hover a state for its count.

Alaska: 1,840Alabama: 20,389Arkansas: 11,005Arizona: 21,686California: 118,183Colorado: 19,199Connecticut: 9,070District of Columbia: 1,153Delaware: 2,637Florida: 173,146Georgia: 55,609Hawaii: 4,838Iowa: 7,302Idaho: 5,763Illinois: 38,357Indiana: 17,740Kansas: 7,687Kentucky: 14,669Louisiana: 19,809Massachusetts: 18,196Maryland: 19,189Maine: 4,834Michigan: 31,069Minnesota: 12,174Missouri: 17,266Mississippi: 13,091Montana: 3,986North Carolina: 39,906North Dakota: 2,225Nebraska: 5,226New Hampshire: 3,510New Jersey: 26,273New Mexico: 4,978Nevada: 12,333New York: 54,638Ohio: 32,207Oklahoma: 13,508Oregon: 10,006Pennsylvania: 29,839Rhode Island: 3,112South Carolina: 20,582South Dakota: 2,668Tennessee: 29,647Texas: 131,984Utah: 8,703Virginia: 26,219Vermont: 2,495Washington: 16,677Wisconsin: 11,502West Virginia: 3,494Wyoming: 2,107
Scale:1,153 to 3,9863,986 to 10,00610,006 to 17,74017,740 to 29,64729,647 to 173,146

Cleaning businesses by state

All 50 states plus D.C. Employment is the column that tells you most here, because it separates the few real companies from the very many one-person firms.

1Florida173,14674.165,978$26,680+22.2%
2Texas131,98442.282,256$30,662+13.6%
3California118,18330116,330$36,126+1.1%
4Georgia55,60949.744,458$29,109+13.2%
5New York54,63827.576,457$39,426+10.9%
6North Carolina39,90636.131,655$26,355+8%
7Illinois38,35730.250,936$32,355+7.3%
8Ohio32,20727.135,142$26,102+8.9%
9Michigan31,06930.629,797$29,172+11.7%
10Pennsylvania29,83922.841,054$28,782+9.1%
11Tennessee29,6474135,239$30,284+8.2%
12New Jersey26,27327.734,413$30,317+13.4%
13Virginia26,21929.838,660$27,115+9.5%
14Arizona21,68628.620,941$30,285+10.9%
15South Carolina20,58237.620,026$24,330+15.5%
16Alabama20,38939.511,791$23,604+7.7%
17Louisiana19,80943.111,074$23,373+8.8%
18Colorado19,19932.222,606$30,269+14.5%
19Maryland19,18930.631,862$29,477+4.8%
20Massachusetts18,19625.525,295$32,432+11.6%
21Indiana17,74025.617,830$26,223+8.5%
22Missouri17,26627.623,120$25,504+10.3%
23Washington16,6772118,746$36,308+6%
24Kentucky14,6693211,327$25,558+7.9%
25Oklahoma13,508338,042$27,808+7.9%
26Mississippi13,09144.55,647$20,979+3.3%
27Nevada12,33337.79,842$27,854+30.8%
28Minnesota12,1742116,329$30,719+5.3%
29Wisconsin11,50219.319,387$25,608+10.7%
30Arkansas11,00535.613,290$21,840+5.3%
31Oregon10,00623.410,897$30,549+6.4%
32Connecticut9,07024.716,179$26,088+2.7%
33Utah8,70324.810,912$30,591+26.4%
34Kansas7,68725.98,767$25,891+8.7%
35Iowa7,30222.510,296$26,426+5.9%
36Idaho5,76328.85,563$25,047+23.3%
37Nebraska5,22626.16,230$27,230+8.7%
38New Mexico4,97823.43,875$23,555+6.9%
39Hawaii4,83833.55,445$26,276+4.3%
40Maine4,83434.43,839$27,113+19.1%
41Montana3,986353,729$26,518+20.5%
42New Hampshire3,51024.92,928$29,469+3.7%
43West Virginia3,49419.72,892$22,862+4.3%
44Rhode Island3,112283,845$30,783+5.5%
45South Dakota2,66828.92,556$20,983+13.4%
46Delaware2,63725.13,437$25,310+14%
47Vermont2,49538.53,014$25,056+8.6%
48North Dakota2,22527.92,777$28,509+7.5%
49Wyoming2,10735.91,546$28,018+3.9%
50Alaska1,84024.94,797$43,343+10.5%
51District of Columbia1,15316.45,139$30,004-0.9%

Total businesses

173,146

Rank #1 of 51

Per 10k residents

74

Rank #1 of 51

Employees

65,978

Rank #4 of 51

Avg annual pay

$26,680

Rank #29 of 51

Pay adjusted for cost of living

$25,799

Rank #42 of 51

Occupation median wage (BLS)

$34,490

Rank #38 of 51

Top 15 states by total businesses

FloridaFlorida173,146TexasTexas131,984CaliforniaCalifornia118,183GeorgiaGeorgia55,609New YorkNew York54,638North CarolinaNorth Carolina39,906IllinoisIllinois38,357OhioOhio32,207MichiganMichigan31,069PennsylvaniaPennsylvania29,839TennesseeTennessee29,647New JerseyNew Jersey26,273VirginiaVirginia26,219ArizonaArizona21,686South CarolinaSouth Carolina20,582

Density, businesses per 10,000 residents

Florida runs 74.1 firms per 10,000 residents, roughly half again the next state. Density is the clearer read on local competition than raw count.

FloridaFlorida74.1GeorgiaGeorgia49.7MississippiMississippi44.5LouisianaLouisiana43.1TexasTexas42.2TennesseeTennessee41AlabamaAlabama39.5VermontVermont38.5NevadaNevada37.7South CarolinaSouth Carolina37.6North CarolinaNorth Carolina36.1WyomingWyoming35.9

How much do cleaners make? Pay by state

Cleaning averages about $30,000, the lowest of the trades here, which is what a 94% solo market looks like in one number.

AlaskaAlaska$43,343New YorkNew York$39,426WashingtonWashington$36,308CaliforniaCalifornia$36,126MassachusettsMassachusetts$32,432IllinoisIllinois$32,355Rhode IslandRhode Island$30,783MinnesotaMinnesota$30,719TexasTexas$30,662UtahUtah$30,591OregonOregon$30,549New JerseyNew Jersey$30,317

Two ways to read pay. The chart above is the Census industry average ($30,089, everyone at cleaning firms, including part-timers). For the specific occupation, the BLS median wage for Janitors and Building Cleaners is $36,840 nationally (full-time-equivalent, so it runs higher). Look up the BLS occupation median for any state with the state tool above.

Where a paycheck goes furthest (cost of living adjusted)

Cleaning pay is low everywhere, so cost of living matters even more. Adjusting each state’s average pay for its cost of living (BEA Regional Price Parities) reranks the map: high-cost states fall, and affordable states rise. Use the “look up your state” tool above to see adjusted pay for any state.

AlaskaAlaska$42,344New YorkNew York$36,532WashingtonWashington$33,929TennesseeTennessee$32,964CaliforniaCalifornia$32,628IllinoisIllinois$32,369North DakotaNorth Dakota$32,047OklahomaOklahoma$31,656TexasTexas$31,592MinnesotaMinnesota$31,149UtahUtah$30,943MassachusettsMassachusetts$30,667

Fastest-growing markets since 2019

Cleaning businesses grew 11% nationwide since 2019 (pre-pandemic), one of the largest post-pandemic surges of any trade. These large markets grew fastest. Sort the table above by “Growth since 2019” to see every state.

FloridaFlorida+22.2%South CarolinaSouth Carolina+15.5%ColoradoColorado+14.5%TexasTexas+13.6%New JerseyNew Jersey+13.4%GeorgiaGeorgia+13.2%MichiganMichigan+11.7%MassachusettsMassachusetts+11.6%New YorkNew York+10.9%ArizonaArizona+10.9%

What this means for operators

Cleaning is the easiest trade to start and the hardest to get rich in solo. With 94% of the market made up of one-person firms and the lowest average pay of any trade, raw competition is intense. What changes the math is recurring revenue: weekly and biweekly accounts batched by neighborhood, the same crew on the same route, and billing that runs itself. That is how a solo cleaner becomes a real business.

At 94% solo, cleaning is the most fragmented trade in this dataset by a wide margin, and the average pay of about $30,000 is what that fragmentation looks like from the inside. The few firms that escape it do it by converting customers without a phone call, so the owner is not the bottleneck: online booking so new customers convert themselves, route-aware scheduling so crews are not driving across town, and automatic invoicing with card-on-file so recurring accounts pay on time without a single reminder text.

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Best states for home services

Cleaning is the easiest trade to enter and the lowest paid. See where it sits against every other home-service trade.

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Methodology

Cleaning businesses = employer establishments (County Business Patterns, NAICS 561720) plus nonemployer firms (Nonemployer Statistics, NAICS 56172). NAICS 561720 (Janitorial Services) covers both residential house cleaning / maid services and commercial janitorial. Employment and average pay come from CBP (annual payroll divided by employment at employer firms). Density is businesses per 10,000 residents using 2024 ACS population. Covers the 50 states plus D.C.

Employer vs. nonemployer: County Business Patterns counts businesses with paid employees; Nonemployer Statistics counts owner-operator firms with none. We sum both for total businesses, which is why the solo share is so high for cleaning.

Pay: average annual pay is Census employer-firm annual payroll divided by employment, an industry average across all roles, not a single occupation wage, and much cleaning work is part-time. Caveats: figures are establishments and firms, not companies. NAICS 561720 (Janitorial Services), covering residential and commercial cleaning. Coverage is the 50 states plus D.C.

Cost of living: adjusted pay divides nominal pay by each state’s Regional Price Parity (BEA, 2024), an index where the U.S. average is 100. A state at 90 is 10% cheaper than average, so a dollar of pay there is worth more.

Occupation wage: alongside the Census industry average we show the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) median wage for Janitors and Building Cleaners (SOC 372011), the wage for that specific job. Census payroll-per-worker is dragged down by heavy part-time cleaning employment; OEWS is a full-time-equivalent occupation wage, which is why it runs higher.

Source

U.S. Census Bureau County Business Patterns (2023), Nonemployer Statistics (2023), and American Community Survey (2024).

Census programs: County Business Patterns, Nonemployer Statistics, American Community Survey. Cost of living: BEA Regional Price Parities. Occupation wages: BLS OEWS.

Frequently asked questions

How many cleaning businesses are there in the U.S.?

About 1,163,726 across the 50 states plus D.C.: 67,799 businesses with employees and 1,095,927 solo / owner-operator firms. The industry employs more than 1,088,193 people at employer firms. This covers NAICS 561720 (Janitorial Services), which includes both residential house cleaning and commercial janitorial.

Is cleaning a good business to start?

Cleaning has the lowest barrier to entry of any home-service trade: about 94% of cleaning businesses are solo operators, no license is required in most states, and startup costs are low. The trade-off is that pay is the lowest of the trades (national average about $30,089), so the operators who build real income are the ones who win recurring contracts and hire a crew. Recurring revenue and route density are everything.

How much do cleaners make?

The national average at cleaning firms is about $30,089 per year (Census annual payroll divided by employment), from around $20,979 in Mississippi to $43,343 in Alaska. This is an industry average across all roles at cleaning companies, not a single occupation wage, and most cleaning work is part-time or hourly.

Which state has the most cleaning businesses?

Florida leads with 173,146 cleaning businesses, followed by Texas (131,984) and California (118,183). Florida also has the highest density, at 74.1 per 10,000 residents.

Which state has the highest cleaning business density?

Florida has the most cleaning businesses per capita, at 74.1 per 10,000 residents, far ahead of Georgia and Mississippi. The Sun Belt dominates density, driven by population growth, vacation rentals, and a large pool of solo operators.

Is the cleaning industry growing?

Yes, fast. The number of cleaning businesses grew about 11% nationwide since 2019, from roughly 1,048,268 to 1,163,726, one of the largest post-pandemic surges of any trade (driven by new solo operators). Growth has been fastest in Sun Belt and Mountain West states.

Where does this data come from?

U.S. Census Bureau: County Business Patterns (2023) for employer establishments, employment, and payroll; Nonemployer Statistics (2023) for solo firms (NAICS 561720); and the American Community Survey (2024) for state population, plus County Business Patterns and Nonemployer Statistics 2019 for the growth comparison. See the methodology below.

Cite this study

Free to reference with a link back. Please credit Smarfle as the source.

Ihor Lavrenenko (2026). Cleaning Business Statistics by State. Smarfle. https://www.smarfle.com/small-business-statistics/cleaning-business-statistics

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