The U.S. cleaning industry counted 87,043 employer firms across janitorial, carpet-and-upholstery and other building-cleaning services in 2022, operating 91,771 establishments with 1,192,816 employees and $92.1 billion in receipts. 66.1 percent of those firms have fewer than five employees, payroll absorbs about 39.5 percent of revenue, and the 11 percent of janitorial firms with 20 or more staff collect 74.1 percent of janitorial receipts, per Census and BLS data.
How many cleaning businesses are there in the United States?
There are 87,043 employer firms in the three Census categories that make up the cleaning industry, operating 91,771 establishments, according to the Census Bureau's 2022 Statistics of U.S. Businesses. The largest is janitorial services (NAICS 561720), with 62,970 firms and 67,295 locations: commercial cleaning, office and medical-facility janitorial, residential maid services and window cleaning. Carpet and upholstery cleaning (561740) adds 6,731 firms, and other services to buildings and dwellings (561790), which includes pressure washing, chimney sweeping, gutter cleaning, duct cleaning and similar exterior and specialty work, adds 17,342.
Like every SUSB count, these are employer firms only, meaning businesses with at least one paid employee. A solo house cleaner with no payroll is a nonemployer business and is not in this table, and cleaning is one of the industries where that solo tier is large, so the total number of cleaning businesses is well above 87,043. Within the broader services-to-buildings group (NAICS 5617, which also contains landscaping and pest control), the three cleaning categories account for 40.4 percent of firms, 40.1 percent of receipts and 56.6 percent of employment.
How much revenue does the average cleaning company make?
Janitorial service firms averaged about $1.18 million in annual receipts in 2022 ($74.0 billion across 62,970 firms), but that average is pulled up by national contractors. The 39,774 janitorial firms with fewer than five employees averaged about $185,000, firms with five to nine employees about $536,000, and firms with 10 to 14 employees about $863,000. Carpet and upholstery cleaners averaged about $653,000 per firm, with the under-five-employee majority at about $209,000, and other building services firms averaged about $791,000, with the smallest tier at about $312,000.
The top of the janitorial market is where the money concentrates. The 6,901 janitorial firms with 20 or more employees, 11.0 percent of the category, averaged about $7.95 million each and collected $54.9 billion, or 74.1 percent of all janitorial receipts. In carpet cleaning and other building services the split is far less lopsided: firms under 20 employees earn 54.8 percent of carpet-cleaning receipts and 63.4 percent of other-building-services receipts, because those trades are built on local routes and one-off jobs rather than multi-site facility contracts.
How small is the typical cleaning business?
66.1 percent of cleaning firms (57,543 of 87,043) have fewer than five employees, and 90.9 percent have fewer than 20. The pattern holds in every category: 63.2 percent of janitorial firms, 73.2 percent of carpet cleaners and 74.1 percent of other building-services firms are under five employees.
Employment runs the other way in janitorial. Firms with fewer than 20 employees are 89.0 percent of janitorial companies but provide only 211,277 of the category's 1,067,762 jobs (19.8 percent); the 11 percent of firms with 20 or more staff employ the other 80.2 percent. The average janitorial firm has about 17 employees, but that average mixes thousands of two-person crews with contractors that staff entire hospital systems. A local commercial cleaning company and a national facility-services provider sit in the same Census code, and the data shows how differently they are built.
What do cleaning companies spend on payroll, and what do cleaners earn?
Cleaning is a payroll business. Janitorial firms paid $30.8 billion in annual payroll in 2022, or 41.6 percent of receipts, the highest ratio of any industry on our statistics pages and well above the 32 percent of fitness centers or the 26 percent of food trucks. Carpet and upholstery cleaners ran payroll at 34.5 percent of receipts and other building services at 29.7 percent. For janitorial firms under 20 employees the ratio was 30.6 percent, lower because the owner's own hours are not on the payroll line. With labor taking four dollars in ten, the margin in a cleaning business lives in scheduling density, supply costs and how fast commercial clients pay.
On the workforce side, the Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 2,432,600 janitor and building cleaner jobs in 2025, with a median pay of $36,840 a year ($17.71 an hour). Employment is projected to grow 2 percent from 2025 to 2035, adding about 53,600 jobs, which the BLS describes as slower than average, in part because high-tech cleaning methods raise output per worker. 35 percent of janitors and building cleaners work for services-to-buildings firms, the contracted cleaning companies described on this page; 17 percent work directly for schools and colleges, 7 percent in healthcare, and 5 percent are self-employed.
What these numbers mean for financing a cleaning business
The data describes a business that is cheap to start and expensive to grow. A one-crew cleaning company needs a vehicle, equipment and supplies, but the first real financing need usually arrives with the first large commercial contract, when payroll for a bigger crew is due every week while the client pays on net-30 or net-60 terms. That gap is why cleaning companies lean on a business line of credit or invoice factoring for working capital, and on equipment financing for floor machines, pressure washers, truck-mounted carpet units and vans.
Our guides on business funding for cleaning companies and funding for janitorial companies cover the products that fit each model, and business funding to cover payroll explains how owners bridge the week-one wage bill on a new contract. The Broker Shop is a funding broker, not a lender: one application is matched to the lenders among 50+ whose guidelines fit your business, and those lenders compete for the deal. Checking your options won't affect your credit score, and it is free to apply.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many cleaning companies are in the U.S.?
The Census Bureau's 2022 Statistics of U.S. Businesses counts 87,043 employer firms in the three cleaning categories: 62,970 janitorial services firms (NAICS 561720), 6,731 carpet and upholstery cleaners (561740) and 17,342 other building-services firms such as pressure washing and chimney and gutter cleaning (561790), operating 91,771 establishments in total. Solo cleaners with no payroll are counted separately as nonemployer businesses and are not included.
What is the average revenue of a cleaning business?
Janitorial service firms averaged about $1.18 million in annual receipts in 2022 ($74.0 billion across 62,970 firms), according to Census SUSB data, but the typical company is much smaller: janitorial firms with fewer than five employees, which are 63.2 percent of the category, averaged about $185,000, and firms with five to nine employees about $536,000. Carpet and upholstery cleaning firms averaged about $653,000 and other building-services firms about $791,000.
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau — 2022 Statistics of U.S. Businesses, firms, establishments, employment, payroll and receipts by NAICS 561720, 561740, 561790 and 5617, by enterprise size · Bureau of Labor Statistics — Occupational Outlook Handbook, Janitors and Building Cleaners (2025 employment, median pay, 2025–35 projections, employment by industry)
Found these figures useful? You are welcome to cite or link to this page. Suggested attribution: “Cleaning Industry Statistics 2026,” The Broker Shop — thebrokershopinc.com/cleaning-industry-statistics-2026.html. Every figure links to its original primary source; averages and shares are computed from the Census totals named above.
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See What I Qualify For →The bottom line: The cleaning industry is 87,043 employer firms and 1,192,816 jobs earning $92.1 billion, where two-thirds of companies have fewer than five employees, payroll takes about 39.5 percent of every dollar and the 11 percent of janitorial firms with 20 or more staff collect 74.1 percent of janitorial revenue; the business that competes with them is a sub-$200,000 crew whose growth is paced by how it funds payroll between contract award and first payment.