The US home services market: size and trends

What counts as home services

Home services is a market label, not a government category. HVAC, electrical, roofing and plumbing contractors sit in specialty trade contracting. Cleaning, pest control and landscaping sit in services to buildings and dwellings. Handymen are counted with residential remodelers, garage door installers with finish carpentry, and appliance repair under repair and maintenance. Each code also includes commercial work. Any headline number for the whole market is therefore an estimate built from pieces, and you should read private market-size claims with that in mind.

The broad groups are large. Specialty trade contractors counted 521,315 establishments with 4,986,759 employees in 2023^[1]. Services to buildings and dwellings, which includes cleaning, pest control and landscaping, counted 227,045 establishments with 2,156,568 employees^[1]. Specialty trade employment reached 5,368,900 in October 2026^[4].

Businesses by trade

Two patterns hold across every trade. Most establishments are small, with more than half under five employees in every category. And the trades with the most establishments are not always the largest employers: plumbing and HVAC, electrical and janitorial firms employ over a million people each, while remodelers and landscapers have more but smaller firms.

How to read market-size claims

Search for the size of the home services market and you will find figures in the hundreds of billions, often from paid research reports with undisclosed methods. Some count only consumer spending on professional services, some include products and materials, some include commercial buildings and some are global. None is wrong by definition, but they are rarely comparable, and few help a local business decide anything.

• Ask what is included: labor only, or labor plus equipment and materials? Residential only, or commercial too?
• Ask where the number comes from: a government count you can check, a survey of households, or a model?
• Ask what year it describes, and whether growth rates are in real or nominal terms.
• Prefer counts you can reproduce for your own county, such as establishments and employees, over national revenue estimates.

For most decisions an owner makes, such as whether to hire, add a trade or enter a new county, local counts of competitors and households beat any national headline. Use national figures to explain the opportunity to a lender or a recruit, and local figures to plan.

The solo layer

Behind the employer firms sits a much larger number of businesses with no employees. In 2023 there were 1,095,927 nonemployer cleaning businesses with $22.78 billion in receipts^[2], 516,572 landscaping businesses with $18.62 billion^[2], 178,663 plumbing, heating and AC businesses with $14.01 billion^[2] and 159,693 electrical businesses with $9.18 billion^[2].

For an employer business, solo operators are both competition and a hiring pool. They often set the low end of residential pricing, especially in cleaning and lawn care, and some are skilled technicians who might join a company offering steady work, benefits and a full schedule without the admin. Know how many there are in your trade before you set prices or a recruiting plan.

Receipts per solo business are modest. The average nonemployer cleaning business took in about $20,785 in 2023^[2], which suggests many are part-time or side businesses rather than full-time competitors. In landscaping the figure was about $36,041^[2]. When you compete on price with these operators, you are often competing with someone who does not count insurance, vehicle replacement or their own benefits. Compete on reliability, scheduling, documentation and response time instead.

Household demand

Angi's 2025 survey found households spent an average of $12,472 on home projects, up from $12,050 in 2024, and completed an average of 10 projects, up from 9^[3]. Regular maintenance was the most commonly planned project at 32% of homeowners^[3]. The US homeownership rate was 65.5% in the third quarter of 2026^[5], so most households are making their own repair decisions and paying for them directly.

Not all of that spending reaches professionals. Some is do-it-yourself work, and some is lost because homeowners cannot find a pro: Angi found 53% of homeowners reported difficulty finding one in 2025^[3]. For a well-run company, that gap is the opportunity. Being reachable, booking quickly and showing up on time wins jobs that competitors leave unanswered.

Seasonality differs by trade

Home services is not one seasonal pattern but several. Landscaping employment rose by about 34% from January to July 2025^[6], and landscaping firms paid only 19.3% of their 2023 payroll in the first quarter, against 25.9% for all industries^[1]. Roofing showed a similar winter dip, with 20.8% of payroll in the first quarter^[1]. Pest control employment rose 7.6% from January to August 2025^[7]. HVAC peaks in both summer and winter, and cleaning is the steadiest of the group.

For owners, the pattern decides cash planning, hiring and whether to add a second trade. Many lawn companies add snow removal or holiday lighting; many roofers add gutter and repair work; many HVAC companies sell maintenance agreements that fill the shoulder months. A market-size number tells you how much work exists in a year; the seasonal pattern tells you when you will have to finance the gap.

Labor supply by trade

Every trade expects steady openings over the next decade, mostly to replace workers who leave. BLS projects about 162,500 openings a year for grounds maintenance workers^[8], 72,700 for electricians^[9], 40,600 for HVAC mechanics and installers^[10], 13,700 for pest control workers^[11] and 12,000 for roofers^[12]. Openings are a measure of hiring churn as much as growth: they mean competitors are recruiting from the same pool you are.

• Trades with long training paths, such as electrical and HVAC, reward companies that run apprenticeships and keep senior technicians.
• Trades with high turnover, such as cleaning and landscaping, reward simple onboarding, clear checklists and reliable schedules.
• Licensed trades limit how fast anyone can add capacity, which supports pricing for companies that are fully staffed.

Trends that shape the next few years

• Labor costs are rising: average hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory workers at specialty trade contractors reached $39.05 in September 2026, up 4.7% in a year^[13]. Price books and service agreements need regular updates.
• Hiring stays hard: construction job openings were 289,000 in September 2026, up from 194,000 a year earlier^[14].
• New construction is soft: single-family starts ran at an annual rate of 859,000 in September 2026^[15]. Existing homes, repairs and replacements carry more of the demand.
• New competitors keep arriving: US business applications totaled 534,947 in September 2026 alone^[16], across all industries.
• Technology adoption is uneven: small firms lag large ones in using AI, so the gap between well-equipped and paper-based competitors is widening.

Using market data in your plan

1. 01

   Pick the right code

   Find your trade's Census industry code and use it consistently; mixing categories makes comparisons meaningless.

2. 02

   Go local

   County Business Patterns and Nonemployer Statistics both publish by county. National numbers rarely matter for a service area.

3. 03

   Count demand, not just competitors

   Combine households, homeownership and home age for your ZIP codes with your trade's demand drivers, such as AC use or lawn size.

4. 04

   Track your share

   Divide active customers by households in your area. Watch the change year to year.

5. 05

   Revisit yearly

   Census releases new business counts each year; update the plan when they land.

Example: a fictional pest control company in two counties counts 65 competing employer establishments and about 300,000 households. With 6,000 recurring customers it serves about 2% of households. Doubling to 4% does not require a new market; it requires better conversion and retention where it already drives. For trade-specific detail, see HVAC industry size and homeowner repair spending.