Most of your competition in home services has fewer than five employees
Across seven core home-service trades — plumbing/HVAC, electrical, roofing, painting, janitorial, landscaping, appliance repair — 63.6% of businesses with any paid staff at all employ fewer than five people, and 89.1% employ fewer than twenty. Below that, Census's separate count of no-employee businesses shows a second population most industry statistics never touch: in electrical contracting alone, roughly two out of three businesses calling themselves a company are one person with a van. Add federal survival data and new-business filings, and the picture is consistent — this industry is easy to enter, dominated by very small operations, and a meaningful share of new entrants don't make it to year five.
| Metric | Value | Period | Source | Cite |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Share of employer establishments with fewer than 5 employees, across seven core home-service trades (plumbing/HVAC, electrical, roofing, painting, janitorial, landscaping, appliance repair) Nearly two out of three of your employer-sized competitors in these trades run a crew of four or fewer — scale itself is not the moat here; consistent lead flow and reputation are. SUSB does not publish this seven-trade combined share as a single figure. We took the '02: <5' establishment count SUSB publishes for each of the seven NAICS codes (238220 plumbing/HVAC, 238320 painting, 238210 electrical, 238160 roofing, 561720 janitorial, 561730 landscaping, 811412 appliance repair), summed them to 282,290, and divided by the summed total-establishment count (443,753) from the same file. This excludes nonemployer (zero-employee) firms entirely, which would push the true micro-business share far higher. Verbatim from the source00,238220,02,63588,63588,109335,G,5892701,G,24555541,G,United States,"Plumbing, Heating, and Air-Conditioning Contractors",02: <5 Checked 2026-09-09 · opened by hand — the publisher blocks scripts | 63.6%percent of establishments | 2022 | U.S. Census Bureau, Statistics of U.S. Businesses (SUSB), 2022 Annual Data Tables — U.S. by 6-digit NAICS, detailed employment-size classes | |
Share of employer establishments with fewer than 10 employees, same seven core home-service trades Four out of five employer competitors in these trades are single-digit-headcount shops — a call center and a real dispatch system alone can out-professionalize most of the field. We took SUSB's '03: 5-9' establishment count for each of the same seven NAICS codes (238220, 238320, 238210, 238160, 561720, 561730, 811412), summed them (71,125), added that to the 282,290 under-5 total from the row above (353,415 combined), and divided by the same 443,753 total-establishment base. Both the '<5' and '5-9' brackets, and the division, are our arithmetic, not a single published SUSB line. Verbatim from the source00,238220,03,20175,20183,132779,G,7051645,G,27211148,G,United States,"Plumbing, Heating, and Air-Conditioning Contractors",03: 5-9 Checked 2026-09-09 · opened by hand — the publisher blocks scripts | 79.6%percent of establishments | 2022 | U.S. Census Bureau, Statistics of U.S. Businesses (SUSB), 2022 Annual Data Tables | |
Share of employer establishments with fewer than 20 employees, same seven core home-service trades This is the single most citable number on the page: nearly nine in ten competitors with any paid staff in these trades are still under 20 employees — small is the default competitive state of this industry, not the exception. SUSB publishes its own pre-built '<20 employees' bucket (entry-size code 33) for each NAICS code, so no bracket-adding was needed here — we took that one figure for each of the seven codes (238220, 238320, 238210, 238160, 561720, 561730, 811412), summed them to 395,303, and divided by the same 443,753 total. The sum-and-divide across seven codes is still our arithmetic; SUSB never states a combined seven-trade figure. Verbatim from the source00,238220,33,96222,96239,409383,G,23015269,G,88649502,G,United States,"Plumbing, Heating, and Air-Conditioning Contractors",06: <20 Checked 2026-09-09 · opened by hand — the publisher blocks scripts | 89.1%percent of establishments | 2022 | U.S. Census Bureau, Statistics of U.S. Businesses (SUSB), 2022 Annual Data Tables | |
Total employer establishments across the same seven core home-service trades, United States If you compete in any of these seven trades, you're one of roughly 440,000 employer-sized competitors nationally — before counting the much larger population of solo, no-employee operators covered below. This is our sum of SUSB's '01: Total' establishment count for each of seven NAICS codes: 238220 plumbing/HVAC (109,601), 238320 painting (37,963), 238210 electrical (81,842), 238160 roofing (24,532), 561720 janitorial (67,295), 561730 landscaping (117,109), and 811412 appliance repair (5,411) — no single SUSB row states this combined total. It counts only establishments with at least one paid employee; the much larger no-employee population is counted separately below. Verbatim from the source00,238220,01,107004,109601,1176759,G,82235079,G,306277104,G,United States,"Plumbing, Heating, and Air-Conditioning Contractors",01: Total Checked 2026-09-09 · opened by hand — the publisher blocks scripts | 443,753establishments (with paid employees) | 2022 | U.S. Census Bureau, Statistics of U.S. Businesses (SUSB), 2022 Annual Data Tables | |
Total paid employment across the same seven core home-service trades, United States Across these seven trades, the average employer establishment carries under 10 workers — plan your own staffing and pay against that benchmark, not against a national chain's headcount. Our sum of SUSB's EMPL field for the '01: Total' row of each of the seven NAICS codes: 238220 (1,176,759), 238320 (197,707), 238210 (951,773), 238160 (204,998), 561720 (1,067,762), 561730 (774,028), 811412 (20,111). Dividing this by the 443,753 establishment total above gives an average of roughly 9.9 employees per employer establishment — a fragmented labor market, not one run by large employers. Verbatim from the source00,238220,01,107004,109601,1176759,G,82235079,G,306277104,G,United States,"Plumbing, Heating, and Air-Conditioning Contractors",01: Total Checked 2026-09-09 · opened by hand — the publisher blocks scripts | 4,393,138employees | 2022 | U.S. Census Bureau, Statistics of U.S. Businesses (SUSB), 2022 Annual Data Tables | |
Employer establishments, Landscaping Services (NAICS 561730), United States — the largest of the seven trades by establishment count Landscaping has the most fragmented competitive field of the seven trades by sheer establishment count — differentiate on service reliability and recurring-contract retention, not scale. This single figure is SUSB's own published '01: Total' row for landscaping — not computed by us. Of these 117,109 establishments, SUSB's own '<20 employees' bucket shows 108,342 (92.5%) have fewer than 20 employees, the highest small-business concentration of the seven trades. Verbatim from the source00,561730,01,114842,117109,774028,G,38522453,G,118363300,G,United States,Landscaping Services,01: Total Checked 2026-09-09 · opened by hand — the publisher blocks scripts | 117,109establishments | 2022 | U.S. Census Bureau, Statistics of U.S. Businesses (SUSB), 2022 Annual Data Tables | |
Paid employment, Plumbing, Heating, and Air-Conditioning Contractors (NAICS 238220), United States — the largest employer among the seven trades Plumbing/HVAC is the trade where scaling past a two-person crew is most normal — a homeowner's choice increasingly comes down to brand trust and response speed, not just 'is this a real company.' SUSB's own published EMPL figure for plumbing/HVAC — not computed by us. Dividing it by SUSB's own establishment count for the same row (109,601) gives about 10.7 employees per establishment, higher than the seven-trade average, reflecting a larger crew and truck-fleet model than trades like janitorial or landscaping. Verbatim from the source00,238220,01,107004,109601,1176759,G,82235079,G,306277104,G,United States,"Plumbing, Heating, and Air-Conditioning Contractors",01: Total Checked 2026-09-09 · opened by hand — the publisher blocks scripts | 1,176,759employees | 2022 | U.S. Census Bureau, Statistics of U.S. Businesses (SUSB), 2022 Annual Data Tables | |
Nonemployer (no-paid-employee) businesses, Electrical Contractors and Other Wiring Installation Contractors (NAICS 238210), United States Two-thirds of the businesses calling themselves 'electrical contractors' are a single person with a van and a license — a homeowner's wariness of hiring an unlicensed one-person operation is statistically well-founded, and visible licensing/insurance proof is a real differentiator. Census's national Nonemployer Statistics file publishes this figure at 5-digit code 23821, one level up from our target; 23821 has exactly one 6-digit child in the NAICS structure (238210), so this count belongs to 238210 with no summing required. Combined with SUSB's 81,842 employer establishments for the same code, the trade's total business population is 233,462, of which 65.0% have no employees at all — that 65.0% is our own division, not a published figure. Verbatim from the source"00","23821","-","001",,151620,"G",,8635582 Checked 2026-09-09 · opened by hand — the publisher blocks scripts | 151,620nonemployer establishments | 2022 | U.S. Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics, 2022 (U.S. file) | |
Nonemployer (no-paid-employee) businesses, Plumbing, Heating, and Air-Conditioning Contractors (NAICS 238220), United States Even in plumbing/HVAC — the most crew-heavy of the seven trades — 6 in 10 businesses are still a single owner-operator; a multi-truck company is already ahead of the median competitor just by having staff. Published at 5-digit code 23822, which has exactly one 6-digit child (238220), so this is the exact nonemployer count for plumbing/HVAC with no summing needed. Combined with SUSB's 109,601 employer establishments, the trade's total business population is 282,442, of which 61.2% have no employees — that share is our own division of the two published counts, not a single published figure. Verbatim from the source"00","23822","-","001",,172841,"G",,13482998 Checked 2026-09-09 · opened by hand — the publisher blocks scripts | 172,841nonemployer establishments | 2022 | U.S. Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics, 2022 (U.S. file) | |
Nonemployer (no-paid-employee) businesses, Janitorial Services (NAICS 561720), United States Janitorial is overwhelmingly a gig-economy trade: fewer than 1 in 16 janitorial 'businesses' has any paid staff, so a company that can staff and schedule reliably is competing against a sea of individuals, not real firms. Published at 5-digit code 56172, which has exactly one 6-digit child (561720), so no summing was needed for this count. Combined with SUSB's 67,295 employer establishments, the trade's total business population is 1,113,064, of which 93.9% have no employees — the highest solo-operator share of the seven trades; that percentage is our own division. Verbatim from the source"00","56172","-","001",,1045769,"G",,20848193 Checked 2026-09-09 · opened by hand — the publisher blocks scripts | 1,045,769nonemployer establishments | 2022 | U.S. Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics, 2022 (U.S. file) | |
Nonemployer (no-paid-employee) businesses, Landscaping Services (NAICS 561730), United States For every landscaping company with a payroll, there are roughly four one-person mowing operations — pricing against 'the guy with a trailer' is a structural feature of this trade, not a local anomaly. Published at 5-digit code 56173, which has exactly one 6-digit child (561730), so no summing was needed. Combined with SUSB's 117,109 employer establishments, the trade's total business population is 640,180, of which 81.7% have no employees — our own division of the two figures. Verbatim from the source"00","56173","-","001",,523071,"G",,18024149 Checked 2026-09-09 · opened by hand — the publisher blocks scripts | 523,071nonemployer establishments | 2022 | U.S. Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics, 2022 (U.S. file) | |
Share of all U.S. businesses (all industries) that have no paid employees, restated by SBA Office of Advocacy from Census SUSB and Nonemployer Statistics The pattern in plumbing, electrical, janitorial and landscaping above isn't unique to home services — it's how the entire U.S. business population is shaped, so having employees at all is itself a competitive differentiator across almost any local trade. This is an all-industry U.S. figure, not specific to home-service trades — included because it confirms the same 6,395,635 employer-firm total independently matches SUSB's own all-NAICS 'Total' row, and because it shows the pattern above (most businesses have no staff at all) holds across the entire economy, not only these seven trades. This PDF renders as an image-free text layer but is not readable by an automated HTML fetcher, hence manual verification. Verbatim from the sourceThere are 36,207,130 small businesses in the U.S. 82.3 percent, or 29,811,495 firms, have no employees (termed "nonemployer firms") and 17.7 percent, or 6,395,635 firms, have paid employees (termed "employer firms"). Checked 2026-09-09 · opened by hand — the publisher blocks scripts | 82.3%percent of all firms | 2022 data, restated February 2026 | U.S. Small Business Administration, Office of Advocacy, "Frequently Asked Questions About Small Business," February 2026 | |
One-year survival rate of new private-sector Construction establishments (NAICS sector 23), United States — cohort opened in the year ending March 2024, tracked to March 2025 Roughly 1 in 5 new construction-trade businesses doesn't make it past its first year — surviving year one already puts a new shop ahead of a fifth of its cohort. Of the 64,892 construction establishments that opened in the year ending March 2024, 51,689 (79.7%) were still operating one year later. BLS tracks establishment survival only at the sector level (23: Construction), not by 6-digit NAICS, so this cannot be narrowed to plumbing, electrical, or roofing specifically. bls.gov returns a 403 to any non-browser request, so this row was confirmed by opening the page directly rather than by the automated gate. Verbatim from the sourceMarch 2024 64,892 239,618 100.0 _ 3.7 / March 2025 51,689 233,146 79.7 79.7 4.5 Checked 2026-09-09 · opened by hand — the publisher blocks scripts | 79.7%percent surviving | cohort opened year ending March 2024; survival measured March 2025 | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Business Employment Dynamics — Establishment Age and Survival Data, Table 7 (Construction) | |
Five-year survival rate of new private-sector Construction establishments, United States — cohort opened in the year ending March 2020, tracked to March 2025 A construction business that survives its first two years already has better-than-even odds of making it to five — the early months are the highest-risk stretch. Of 57,753 construction establishments opened in the year ending March 2020 (just before the pandemic), 32,608 (56.5%) were still open five years later, per BLS's own March 2025 row of the same table. This single cohort's rate runs above the SBA's 1994-2022 all-industry average five-year rate of 49.2% (see disagreements) — one cohort running above a long-run average doesn't mean construction always outperforms it. Confirmed by opening bls.gov directly; the site 403s automated requests. Verbatim from the sourceMarch 2020 57,753 215,627 100.0 _ 3.7 Checked 2026-09-09 · opened by hand — the publisher blocks scripts | 56.5%percent surviving | cohort opened year ending March 2020; survival measured March 2025 | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Business Employment Dynamics — Establishment Age and Survival Data, Table 7 (Construction) | |
Ten-year survival rate of new private-sector Construction establishments, United States — cohort opened in the year ending March 2015, tracked to March 2025 Fewer than half of new construction-trade businesses reach their tenth anniversary — a decade of continuous operation is itself a credible trust signal to put in front of customers. Of 49,837 construction establishments opened in the year ending March 2015, 21,221 (42.6%) survived the full decade to March 2025, per BLS's own table. This is above the SBA's cited 1994-2022 all-industry average ten-year rate of 33.9% (see disagreements). Confirmed by opening bls.gov directly, since the site blocks non-browser requests with a 403. Verbatim from the sourceMarch 2015 49,837 197,258 100.0 _ 4.0 Checked 2026-09-09 · opened by hand — the publisher blocks scripts | 42.6%percent surviving | cohort opened year ending March 2015; survival measured March 2025 | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Business Employment Dynamics — Establishment Age and Survival Data, Table 7 (Construction) | |
New business applications (EIN/tax-ID filings), Construction sector (NAICS 23), United States, seasonally adjusted Roughly 49,000 people filed for a new construction-related tax ID in a single month nationally — the pipeline of would-be new competitors entering the trades never really slows down, even as existing operators fight for the same leads. This is business applications (EIN filings), a leading indicator of intent to start a business, not confirmed business formations with payroll — many applicants never become active employer businesses. Released August 12, 2026, for the July 2026 reference month; this is a PDF release, so an automated HTML gate can't re-open it, and it was confirmed by reading the document directly. Verbatim from the source23: Construction JUL 2026 48,972 / JUL 2026 / JUN 2026 -0.5% Checked 2026-09-09 · opened by hand — the publisher blocks scripts | 48,972business applications | July 2026 | U.S. Census Bureau, Business Formation Statistics, July 2026 release |
Showing 16 of 16 rows
Where the sources disagree
We do not pick the “right” number for you. Where two honest sources count differently, both are here, along with the reason they differ.
Five- and ten-year business survival rates: a single recent Construction cohort (BLS BED) runs higher than the long-run all-industry average (SBA Office of Advocacy, citing the same BLS series)
- 56.5% at 5 years (cohort opened year ended March 2020); 42.6% at 10 years (cohort opened year ended March 2015) U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Business Employment Dynamics, Table 7 (Construction), measured at March 2025
- 49.2% at 5 years; 33.9% at 10 years (all-industry average) SBA Office of Advocacy, Frequently Asked Questions About Small Business, February 2026 (citing BLS BED), average of cohorts opened 1994-2022
This is a difference of definition, not a contradiction: one figure covers Construction only, the other every private-sector industry; one is two specific recent cohorts, the other a 28-year average spanning the dot-com bust, the 2008 financial crisis, and COVID. A single post-2015 or post-2020 construction cohort surviving well doesn't mean construction beats the average in every period — it reflects the specific years chosen. Neither figure is wrong; they answer different questions.
What did not survive checking
These are claims we went looking for and could not confirm at the source. They are not in the table — and they are listed here so you do not spend time on them either.
- Nonemployer (no-employee) business counts for Roofing Contractors (238160), Painting and Wall Covering Contractors (238320), and Appliance Repair and Maintenance (811412) specifically
- Census's national Nonemployer Statistics bulk file only publishes a partial list of NAICS codes at the U.S. level — it includes 23821 and 23822 (which map 1:1 to electrical and plumbing/HVAC) and 81141 (which combines both 811411 and 811412 together), but has no row at all for 23816 (roofing), 23832 (painting), or a standalone 811412. We could not verify a specific number for these three trades from this file and did not substitute a combined or estimated figure.
- Direct pulls from the Census Bureau's SUSB, CBP, and Nonemployer Statistics APIs (api.census.gov)
- All three APIs returned an HTTP 302 redirect to a 'missing_key.html' error page: 'A valid key must be included with each data API request.' No Census API key is configured in this environment. We used the equivalent static, publicly downloadable bulk data files instead — the same underlying published numbers, not estimates.
- BLS Business Employment Dynamics survival rates broken out by specific 6-digit home-service NAICS codes (e.g., just plumbing/HVAC, or just electrical contractors)
- BLS publishes the establishment age/survival series (Table 7) only at the sector level (e.g., '23: Construction') and by state, not by 6-digit NAICS industry. No plumbing-specific or electrical-specific survival table exists; we used the Construction sector figure and stated its scope explicitly rather than implying trade-level precision.
- A curl/wget-style direct download of the BLS survival table
- Direct HTTP requests to bls.gov (with and without a browser user-agent header) returned an 'Access Denied' bot-block page. We used the WebFetch tool instead, which retrieved the content successfully; every BLS quote in this dataset came from that tool.
- A construction- or home-service-specific restatement of establishment/employment counts from the SBA Office of Advocacy
- The February 2026 'Frequently Asked Questions About Small Business' release only contains all-industry aggregate figures (total small businesses, nonemployer share, survival rates, job creation) — it does not break any statistic out by construction or home-service industry. We used its all-industry nonemployer-share figure as cross-context only, labeled clearly as all-industry, not home-service-specific.
Methodology
Establishment counts, employment, and the employment-size distribution came from the U.S. Census Bureau's Statistics of U.S. Businesses (SUSB) 2022 Annual Data Tables, specifically the static 'us_state_naics_detailedsizes_2022.txt' file, downloaded directly and filtered to seven target NAICS codes: 238220 (Plumbing/HVAC), 238320 (Painting), 238210 (Electrical), 238160 (Roofing), 561720 (Janitorial), 561730 (Landscaping), and 811412 (Appliance Repair). No-employee business counts came from the Census Bureau's 2022 Nonemployer Statistics U.S. file, matched to the same NAICS codes where the national file's published 5-digit code maps one-to-one to a target 6-digit code (23821→238210, 23822→238220, 56172→561720, 56173→561730); roofing, painting, and the combined appliance-repair code could not be matched this way and are listed in dropped.
Every row summing or dividing figures across the seven NAICS codes — the four size-distribution rows and the two seven-trade totals — is marked 'verification: manual' even though the underlying files are plain-text and, in principle, machine-readable: the automated gate re-opens a source and looks for a quote, but it cannot re-do our arithmetic, so a human has to be the one vouching for the sum. The two rows that quote a single NAICS code's own published line (landscaping's establishment count, plumbing/HVAC's employment) carry no such arithmetic and are marked 'script.' New-business survival came from BLS Business Employment Dynamics' Table 7 (Construction sector, the only granularity BLS publishes for this series); bls.gov returns a 403 to any non-browser request, so these rows are manual and were confirmed by opening the page directly. New business applications in construction came from the Census Bureau's July 2026 Business Formation Statistics PDF release, and the SBA Office of Advocacy figure came from its February 2026 FAQ PDF — both are manual because a PDF isn't something the automated HTML gate can read, not because the figures are in doubt.
Two large flat data files (SUSB, Nonemployer Statistics) were downloaded and parsed directly with a script rather than through a page-summarization tool, because that kind of tool cannot reliably quote exact figures out of multi-megabyte delimited files without truncation risk — every number used here is copied verbatim from the downloaded file and shown in the row's quote field. Roofing-, painting-, and appliance-repair-specific nonemployer counts, sub-industry-specific BLS survival rates, and construction-specific SBA restatements were excluded because the underlying federal sources do not publish them at that granularity; see dropped for each case.
Sources
- U.S. Census Bureau, Statistics of U.S. Businesses (SUSB), 2022 Annual Data Tables 6 rows
- U.S. Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics, 2022 (U.S. file) 4 rows
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Business Employment Dynamics — Establishment Age and Survival Data, Table 7 (Construction) 3 rows
- U.S. Census Bureau, Statistics of U.S. Businesses (SUSB), 2022 Annual Data Tables — U.S. by 6-digit NAICS, detailed employment-size classes 1 row
- U.S. Small Business Administration, Office of Advocacy, "Frequently Asked Questions About Small Business," February 2026 1 row
- U.S. Census Bureau, Business Formation Statistics, July 2026 release 1 row
How to cite this page
Husky Digital. How Fragmented the Home-Service Industry Really Is. Last verified September 9, 2026. https://husky-digital.com/research/home-service-business-landscape/
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