Census CBP 2023 · NAICS 812113
How many nail salons are there in the US?
Nail salon counts and receipts, employer and nonemployer, from the two Census programs that between them cover every US business.
- With employees34,417establishments
- Without employees295,977businesses
- Employees148,059in the employer half
- Annual payroll$3.9 billionemployer half
Nail salons average around four employees each, the tightest employer headcount of any beauty industry here, and the nonemployer side is nearly nine times larger by business count.
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 | 34,417 | 295,977 |
| People employed | 148,059 | None, by definition |
| Average staff each | 4.3 | Zero |
| Payroll and receipts | $3.9 billion | $12.2 billion |
| Source | Census CBP 2023 | Census NES 2023 |
nail salons with employees are 0.412 per cent of all 8,361,342 US establishments with employees
The five states with the most nail salons
| State | Establishments with employees |
|---|---|
| California | 6,750 |
| New York | 4,329 |
| New Jersey | 2,126 |
| Texas | 1,881 |
| Pennsylvania | 1,846 |
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.
Nail Salons
Counted here
Establishments primarily providing manicure and pedicure services.
Counted somewhere else
Full-service beauty salons that also do nails, which are counted as 812112.
NAICS 812113 · 1 August 2026
What these figures actually say about nail salons
The most geographically concentrated beauty industry on the site, sitting under a nonemployer side nearly nine times larger by business count.
Nail salons with staff average a little over four employees each. That is a table and a technician per station rather than a workforce, and it is the reason the wage distribution for nail technicians is so compressed: there is no scale in this business model to pay for a higher grade.
The nonemployer count is nearly nine times the employer count, and average receipts per nonemployer business are the highest of the beauty codes in this dataset. That combination describes a large population of individual technicians turning over a meaningful amount each, which is what table rental and home studios look like in aggregate.
Geographically this is the most concentrated beauty industry on the site: the five largest states hold close to half of every employer nail salon in the country. Full service salons that also do nails are counted as beauty salons instead, so this code is nail specialists only, which is unusually clean for a Census industry code.
Four employees and no scale means the diary is the constraint and retention is the lever. That is why the marketing that works in this trade is about the rebooking date rather than the technique, however good the technique is.
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 812113 Nail Salons. 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 812113. 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 nail salons are there in the US?
- Census County Business Patterns counted 34,417 nail salons with at least one paid employee in 2023, employing 148,059 people on a payroll of $3.9 billion. Nonemployer Statistics counted a further 295,977 businesses with no employees, turning over $12.2 billion. NAICS code 812113.
- 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?
- Establishments primarily providing manicure and pedicure services. What it excludes: full-service beauty salons that also do nails, which are counted as 812112.
- What does this count tell somebody running one of these businesses?
- The most geographically concentrated beauty industry on the site, sitting under a nonemployer side nearly nine times larger by business count. Four employees and no scale means the diary is the constraint and retention is the lever. That is why the marketing that works in this trade is about the rebooking date rather than the technique, however good the technique is.
- 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.