Census CBP 2023 · NAICS 561720
How many cleaning companies are there in the US?
The full size of the US contract cleaning industry, employer and nonemployer, and where window cleaning hides inside it.
- With employees67,799establishments
- Without employees1,095,927businesses
- Employees1,088,193in the employer half
- Annual payroll$32.7 billionemployer half
Over a million nonemployer cleaning businesses, and almost exactly the same number again of employees inside the 67,799 companies that do have staff. The industry is two industries: a small number of large contract cleaners, and an enormous field of solo operators.
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 | 67,799 | 1,095,927 |
| People employed | 1,088,193 | None, by definition |
| Average staff each | 16.1 | Zero |
| Payroll and receipts | $32.7 billion | $22.8 billion |
| Source | Census CBP 2023 | Census NES 2023 |
cleaning companies with employees are 0.811 per cent of all 8,361,342 US establishments with employees
The five states with the most cleaning companies
| State | Establishments with employees |
|---|---|
| California | 6,956 |
| Florida | 6,675 |
| Texas | 3,858 |
| New York | 3,762 |
| Illinois | 2,520 |
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.
Janitorial Services
Counted here
Building interior cleaning, office cleaning, housekeeping contractors, maid services on contract, and window cleaning services.
Counted somewhere else
Exterior building cleaning and pressure washing, which Census codes to 561790, and carpet cleaning, which is 561740.
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 561720 Janitorial Services. 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 561720. 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 cleaning companies are there in the US?
- Census County Business Patterns counted 67,799 cleaning companies with at least one paid employee in 2023, employing 1,088,193 people on a payroll of $32.7 billion. Nonemployer Statistics counted a further 1,095,927 businesses with no employees, turning over $22.8 billion. NAICS code 561720.
- 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?
- Building interior cleaning, office cleaning, housekeeping contractors, maid services on contract, and window cleaning services. What it excludes: exterior building cleaning and pressure washing, which Census codes to 561790, and carpet cleaning, which is 561740.
- 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.