Census CBP 2023 · NAICS 812112
How many hair salons are there in the US?
The size of the US salon industry, counted two ways: salons with staff and salon businesses without.
- With employees84,176establishments
- Without employees838,264businesses
- Employees391,064in the employer half
- Annual payroll$12.4 billionemployer half
Nonemployer salon businesses outnumber employer salons roughly ten to one, and they still turn over twice the payroll of the employer side. The average US salon is one person with a chair, not a shop floor.
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 | 84,176 | 838,264 |
| People employed | 391,064 | None, by definition |
| Average staff each | 4.6 | Zero |
| Payroll and receipts | $12.4 billion | $25.5 billion |
| Source | Census CBP 2023 | Census NES 2023 |
beauty salons with employees are 1.007 per cent of all 8,361,342 US establishments with employees
The five states with the most beauty salons
| State | Establishments with employees |
|---|---|
| California | 8,733 |
| Florida | 7,534 |
| New York | 7,124 |
| Texas | 5,740 |
| Pennsylvania | 4,846 |
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.
Beauty Salons
Counted here
Hair salons, unisex salons, hairdressing and cosmetology services, and combined hair and beauty shops.
Counted somewhere else
Barber shops (812111), nail-only salons (812113) and day spas, which Census codes elsewhere.
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 812112 Beauty 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 812112. 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 hair salons are there in the US?
- Census County Business Patterns counted 84,176 beauty salons with at least one paid employee in 2023, employing 391,064 people on a payroll of $12.4 billion. Nonemployer Statistics counted a further 838,264 businesses with no employees, turning over $25.5 billion. NAICS code 812112.
- 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?
- Hair salons, unisex salons, hairdressing and cosmetology services, and combined hair and beauty shops. What it excludes: barber shops (812111), nail-only salons (812113) and day spas, which Census codes elsewhere.
- 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.
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