Census CBP 2023 · NAICS 812111
How many barber shops are there in the US?
Employer barber shops, nonemployer barber businesses, and the gap between them, which in this trade is the whole story.
- With employees7,789establishments
- Without employees141,769businesses
- Employees29,017in the employer half
- Annual payroll$977 millionemployer half
Eighteen nonemployer barber businesses exist for every barber shop with staff on a payroll. No other trade on this site is that lopsided. It is the chair rental model showing up in federal data.
Businesses with staff, and businesses without
These are two different federal surveys covering two different universes, and adding them together without saying so is the most common way this data gets misquoted. They are kept separate here on purpose.
| Measure | Employer | Nonemployer |
|---|---|---|
| Businesses | 7,789 | 141,769 |
| People employed | 29,017 | None, by definition |
| Average staff each | 3.7 | Zero |
| Payroll and receipts | $977 million | $4.5 billion |
| Source | Census CBP 2023 | Census NES 2023 |
barber shops with employees are 0.093 per cent of all 8,361,342 US establishments with employees
The five states with the most barber shops
| State | Establishments with employees |
|---|---|
| New York | 1,000 |
| Florida | 808 |
| Texas | 605 |
| California | 594 |
| New Jersey | 560 |
Employer establishments only. The nonemployer side is not published by state at this level of detail, and in most of these trades it is the larger half, so treat this table as a ranking rather than a census of the trade.
Barber Shops
Counted here
Shops primarily cutting and trimming men's hair, plus shaving and beard work.
Counted somewhere else
Unisex and women's salons, which Census counts as Beauty Salons under 812112.
NAICS 812111 · 1 August 2026
What these figures actually say about barber shops
The most lopsided trade in this dataset: eighteen nonemployer barber businesses for every barber shop with staff on a payroll.
No other industry here is close to that ratio. It is the chair rental model showing up in federal data: the shop is one business, and every barber renting a chair inside it is another, counted separately by Nonemployer Statistics with its own receipts. Adding the two counts together would double count a single premises several times over, which is why this site keeps them apart everywhere.
The employer half is small and shallow. Shops with staff average under four employees each, and the whole industry accounts for just under a tenth of one per cent of American establishments with employees. Payroll per employee sits below most of the industries in this dataset, which is what you would expect when the higher earning barbers in a shop are renters rather than staff.
Census splits barbering from beauty salons at the code level: unisex and women salons are counted separately under Beauty Salons. Anybody quoting a single number for hairdressing in the United States is merging two codes that measure different businesses, and usually not saying so.
Eighteen to one means the competitor is almost never a shop, it is another individual with a chair and a phone. That is a marketing contest rather than a commercial one, and it is won by whoever is easiest to find and easiest to trust in a single suburb.
Every figure quoted above appears in the tables on this page or is arithmetic on them. Nothing here forecasts, values a business or suggests a price, because none of the three is measurable from a business count.
Where these numbers came from
Public domain US federal statistics, fetched by hand and baked into this site rather than called at build time. If you quote a figure from this page, cite the agency rather than this site, and use the wording below.
US Census Bureau, County Business Patterns, 2023, United States, NAICS 812111 Barber Shops. Accessed 2026-08-01.
Counts establishments with at least one paid employee, measured in the week of 12 March 2023. A business with no employees is counted by Nonemployer Statistics instead, not here.
US Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics, 2023, United States, NAICS 812111. Accessed 2026-08-01.
Counts businesses with no paid employees and at least $1,000 in annual receipts. Sole traders, single-van operators and self-employed contractors land here.
What these workers are paid
Marketing the trade
All the numbers
Common questions
- How many barber shops are there in the US?
- Census County Business Patterns counted 7,789 barber shops with at least one paid employee in 2023, employing 29,017 people on a payroll of $977 million. Nonemployer Statistics counted a further 141,769 businesses with no employees, turning over $4.5 billion. NAICS code 812111.
- Why are there two different numbers?
- Because they measure two different universes. County Business Patterns counts establishments with at least one paid employee. Nonemployer Statistics counts businesses with no employees and at least a thousand dollars of annual receipts. Together they cover every US business, and adding them without saying so would be misleading, so this page keeps them apart.
- What else is inside this code?
- Shops primarily cutting and trimming men's hair, plus shaving and beard work. What it excludes: unisex and women's salons, which Census counts as Beauty Salons under 812112.
- What does this count tell somebody running one of these businesses?
- The most lopsided trade in this dataset: eighteen nonemployer barber businesses for every barber shop with staff on a payroll. Eighteen to one means the competitor is almost never a shop, it is another individual with a chair and a phone. That is a marketing contest rather than a commercial one, and it is won by whoever is easiest to find and easiest to trust in a single suburb.
- How current is this?
- 2023 is the most recent County Business Patterns and Nonemployer Statistics release published by the Census Bureau. Both were fetched and baked into this site on 1 August 2026. This page makes no live API call.
Numbers persuade nobody. The pair does.
Every trade on this page sells the same way: a photograph of the problem beside a photograph of the result. Take the two, and Before and After Video Maker turns them into a 1080p video, a looping GIF or a still.