How Many HVAC Companies Are There in the US? A State-by-State Count (2026)

How many HVAC companies are there? 111,207 employer locations and 189,085 solo businesses, before plumbing comes out

Every official count of HVAC contractors starts from NAICS 238220, a Census code that holds plumbers, heating and air-conditioning contractors together. In 2023 it held 111,207 employer establishments; in 2024 it held 189,085 nonemployer businesses.

NAICS 238220: Plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractors. Federal statistics do not publish a separate code for HVAC-only contractors, so any raw count from this code includes plumbing shops.

County Business Patterns counted 111,207 plumbing and HVAC employer establishments in mid-March 2023, up 1.5% from 109,601 in 2022 (Census CBP 2023). An establishment is one physical location with paid employees.

Nonemployer Statistics counted 189,085 plumbing and HVAC businesses with no paid employees in 2024, released by Census on September 29, 2026 (Census NES 2024). For construction, Census includes nonemployers from $1 of receipts.

Counting by company rather than location changes little: Statistics of U.S. Businesses counted 107,004 employer firms operating 109,601 establishments in 2022, or 1.024 locations per firm (Census SUSB 2022).

For an owner, the useful number depends on the question. Competing for residential service calls means competing with solo operators too; selling a company means the buyer pool and the comparison set are the employer firms, which number about 107,004 including plumbers. The site's guide for owners selling an HVAC business covers the sale side.

HVAC work is 43.6% of the trade, which puts HVAC-focused employers near 48,400

The 2022 Economic Census breaks the work of NAICS 238220 establishments into kinds of business. HVAC contractor work was 40.9% of the dollar value and refrigeration 2.6%, against 25.2% for plumbing. Applied to the 2023 establishment count, that weighting gives 48,431 HVAC-weighted employer establishments.

Mechanical contractor work, 18.3% of the total, sits on the line between the two trades because it covers both HVAC systems and piping. Counting all of it as HVAC raises the share to 61.8% and the estimate to 68,700 establishments (2022 Economic Census, EC2223KOB).

The weighting assumes HVAC and plumbing establishments are of similar average size. If HVAC shops are smaller on average than plumbing or mechanical shops, the true number of HVAC-focused locations is higher than 48,400; if larger, it is lower. The Texas and Florida license checks below suggest the share is in the right range.

Vermont, South Dakota and New Hampshire have the most HVAC employers per home; Mississippi has the fewest

Nationally there are 3.3 HVAC-weighted employer establishments for every 10,000 housing units, or one for every 3,030 homes. State figures run from 5.91 in Vermont to 1.61 in Mississippi and 0.61 in the District of Columbia.

Each state's estimate uses its own HVAC share of work from the 2022 Economic Census, so a state where plumbing takes a larger slice is not overstated. South Dakota (5.79), New Hampshire (5.4) and Montana (5.36) follow Vermont (5.91); Michigan (2.16), South Carolina (2.2) and Mississippi (1.61) sit near the bottom (ACS 2024 housing units).

In raw counts, California has the most HVAC-weighted employer establishments (5,595), followed by Florida (3,853), New York (3,724) and Texas (3,232). Texas ranks lower than its size suggests because HVAC was 36.1% of its trade's 2022 work, below the US share of 43.6%.

For an owner, a low ratio of shops to homes is one input when judging local competition for service agreements; it says nothing about prices or margins, which the data here do not cover.

Three in four employer locations have fewer than 10 people, yet the 50-plus group grew fastest

In 2023, 76.8% of plumbing and HVAC employer establishments (85,458) had fewer than 10 paid employees and 58.3% had fewer than 5. Only 3.8% (4,217) had 50 or more.

From 2017 to 2023 the number of establishments with 50 or more employees rose 26.6%, from 3,330 to 4,217, while establishments with fewer than 5 employees rose 5.9%. The under-10 share slipped from 78.2% to 76.8% (Census CBP 2017).

By firm, the picture is similar: 59.4% of the 107,004 employer firms in 2022 had fewer than 5 employees and 89.9% had fewer than 20. At the other end, 215 firms with 500 or more employees across all their operations ran 1,932 plumbing and HVAC establishments (Census SUSB 2022).

The average employer establishment had 10.9 paid employees in March 2023, a mean pulled up by the largest operators. A typical owner runs a shop well below that.

Businesses with no employees outnumber employers 1.7 to 1 and are densest in Texas, Florida and Georgia

Nonemployers were 61.6% of the 289,870 plumbing and HVAC businesses Census counted for 2023. Their number grew 29.4% from 2017 to 2024, against 8.5% for employer establishments from 2017 to 2023.

Many nonemployers are part-time or side businesses: 28.9% (54,725) reported receipts under $10,000 in 2024. Another 43,306, or 22.9%, reported $100,000 or more, up 33.1% from 32,539 in 2019 in nominal dollars. Individual proprietorships made up 89.8% of nonemployers.

Per 10,000 housing units, Texas had 22.1 plumbing and HVAC nonemployers in 2024, Florida 19.7, Georgia 18.3 and Mississippi 16.4. Washington (4.3) and Oregon (4.8) had the fewest among the states. Mississippi ranks near the bottom for HVAC-weighted employers but near the top for solo businesses, so the employer map alone understates its contractor supply.

Texas and Florida license rosters land inside our HVAC share range

Licensed HVAC business names equal 48.4% of all plumbing and HVAC businesses in Texas and 42.3% in Florida. Both sit between each state's core and broad HVAC shares from the Economic Census.

Texas requires air conditioning and refrigeration companies to employ a licensed ACR contractor in each permanent location (TDLR). The state's open data listed 20,462 A/C Contractor license records, of which 18,874 had not expired on 2 November 2026, carrying 17,838 distinct business names (TDLR All Licenses).

Florida's licensee file listed 13,868 current, active air conditioning and mechanical contractor licenses (11,104 certified and 285 registered air conditioning, 2,408 certified and 71 registered mechanical) with 12,836 distinct business names. The official download blocks automated access, so we used the Internet Archive copy captured on 10 August 2026.

Texas licenses outnumber the state's HVAC-weighted employer establishments 5.8 to 1. That gap is expected: the roster also covers solo operators, licensed employees of larger firms and holders who are not contracting. License counts are therefore a ceiling on HVAC businesses, not a count of them. Requirements by state are compared in our HVAC license requirements by state report.

Establishments, firms, worksites and license holders are four different counts

The 111,207 figure counts locations, the 107,004 figure counts companies, BLS counts 123,866 unemployment-insurance worksites for 2025, and license rosters count people. Mixing them produces most of the conflicting numbers in circulation.

Establishment: A single physical location where business is done. A company with three branches is three establishments in County Business Patterns.

Firm: A company under common ownership, counted once however many locations it has (Statistics of U.S. Businesses).

Nonemployer: A business with no paid employees that files a federal income tax return; most are sole proprietors. Census treats each as one establishment.

BLS's Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages counted 123,866 private plumbing and HVAC establishments in 2025, up 13.3% from 109,351 in 2019. BLS also splits the code by customer: 94,274 residential and 29,593 nonresidential establishments, so 76.1% serve mainly homes (BLS QCEW 2025).

Commercial lists report much larger totals. One vendor list shows 473,086 HVAC companies on an SIC 1711 basis, which also covers plumbing and counts listings rather than tax filers (CompanyData.com). A Yelp-based tally reports 2,753 HVAC businesses in Arizona and 28 in Wyoming without a data date (Housecall Pro). Neither is comparable with Census counts.

State-by-state findings

1. The US had 111,207 plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractor employer establishments in 2023 (Census CBP, NAICS 238220).^[1]
2. The US had 189,085 plumbing and HVAC businesses with no paid employees in 2024, up 5.8% from 178,663 in 2023 (Census NES).^[5][6]
3. HVAC and refrigeration contractor work was 43.6% of the value of business done by US plumbing and HVAC contractors in 2022 (2022 Economic Census).^[10]
4. About 48,400 US employer establishments were HVAC-focused in 2023, our estimate from CBP 2023 and the 2022 Economic Census; including all mechanical work gives 68,700.^[1][10]
5. The US had 3.3 HVAC-weighted employer establishments per 10,000 housing units in 2023 to 2024, one for every 3,030 homes (our calculation from CBP, Economic Census and ACS).^[1][10][12]
6. Vermont had the most HVAC-weighted employer establishments per 10,000 housing units (5.91) and Mississippi the fewest among states (1.61).^[1][10][12]
7. 76.8% of US plumbing and HVAC employer establishments had fewer than 10 employees in 2023 (Census CBP).^[1]
8. US plumbing and HVAC establishments with 50 or more employees rose 26.6% from 2017 to 2023, to 4,217 (Census CBP).^[1][4]
9. Employer establishments rose 8.5% from 2017 to 2023, a net gain of 8,752 (Census CBP).^[1][4]
10. Nonemployer plumbing and HVAC businesses rose 29.4% from 2017 to 2024, a net gain of 43,006 (Census NES).^[5][8]
11. 28.9% of US plumbing and HVAC nonemployers reported receipts under $10,000 in 2024 (Census NES).^[5]
12. 89.9% of the 107,004 US plumbing and HVAC employer firms had fewer than 20 employees in 2022 (Census SUSB).^[9]
13. BLS counted 123,866 private plumbing and HVAC establishments in 2025, 76.1% of them residential (QCEW).^[13]
14. Texas had 18,874 unexpired A/C Contractor licenses on 2 November 2026, 5.8 per HVAC-weighted employer establishment (TDLR, our calculation).^[15][1][10]
15. Florida had 13,868 current, active air conditioning and mechanical contractor licenses in its 10 August 2026 licensee file (DBPR).^[17]

Rankings and ratios we derived

Download the calculations (CSV)

Executive summary

• Census counted 111,207 plumbing and HVAC employer establishments in 2023 and 189,085 nonemployer businesses in 2024.
• HVAC and refrigeration work was 43.6% of the trade's 2022 business done; plumbing was 25.2%.
• Our signature estimate: about 48,400 HVAC-focused employer establishments in 2023, or 68,700 counting all mechanical work.
• Nationally there are 3.3 HVAC-weighted employer establishments per 10,000 homes; Vermont has 5.91 and Mississippi 1.61.
• 76.8% of employer establishments have fewer than 10 employees, but those with 50 or more grew 26.6% from 2017 to 2023.
• Nonemployers grew 29.4% from 2017 to 2024, against 8.5% growth for employer establishments from 2017 to 2023.
• Texas and Florida license rosters put licensed HVAC business names at 48.4% and 42.3% of all plumbing and HVAC businesses, inside the Economic Census range.

Frequently asked questions

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Reproduce this analysis

Every figure comes from the files below. The scripts that pulled and computed them are kept with the report and can be re-run.

Data quality and exclusions

• CBP state size classes: 50 of 51 state rows in 2023 had at least one withheld (N) large-size cell, hiding 1 to 4 establishments each; these were not imputed and not used in state size figures. US rows had no withheld cells.
• NES 2017: 10 minor cells (legal-form or $1 million+ receipt rows) were suppressed (S); no state or US total was affected.
• NES 2024 state totals sum to 188,744, 341 fewer than the US total of 189,085; we use the US figure for national statements and state figures for state statements.
• Economic Census KOB: refrigeration (8225) values are not published for Alaska and the District of Columbia; they are treated as zero, which lowers those two core shares slightly.
• TDLR: 1,588 expired A/C Contractor records were dropped; 361 unexpired records with a blank business name were excluded from the distinct-name count.
• Florida: the official DBPR download returned HTTP 403 to automated requests, so the Internet Archive copy of the official file (captured 2026-08-10) was used; inactive (I) licenses were excluded.
• QCEW bulk zips (2025 and 2019) were downloaded once; only the three NAICS 23822 member files were kept in raw/ to save space.

Methodology

Source selection: counts come from federal statistical programs (Census County Business Patterns, Nonemployer Statistics, Statistics of U.S. Businesses, the 2022 Economic Census, ACS; BLS QCEW) and from state license rosters published by the licensing agencies. Commercial lists and trade-press figures appear only as context and are labelled Tier 3.

Industry definition: all federal counts use NAICS 238220 (plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractors; NES and QCEW publish it as 23822). We never call a raw 238220 count 'HVAC companies' without the plumbing qualifier.

HVAC-only estimate: the 2022 Economic Census table EC2223KOB reports the value of business done by NAICS 238220 establishments by kind of business. We take HVAC contractor (8220) plus refrigeration contractor (8225) as the core HVAC share (43.6% nationally) and add mechanical contractor (8223) for a broad share (61.8%). Each share multiplies the CBP 2023 establishment count, nationally and state by state. The 2022 Economic Census product-line table (NAPCS) was checked but classifies work by type of building, not by trade, so it cannot split HVAC from plumbing.

Density: state HVAC-weighted establishments divided by ACS 2024 1-year housing units (table B25001), times 10,000. Nonemployers per 10,000 housing units use NES 2024.

License cross-check: Texas A/C Contractor licenses from the TDLR open-data portal, kept when the expiration date was on or after 2 November 2026. Florida CAC, RA, CMC and RM licenses with primary status C and secondary status A, using the column layout on DBPR's public records page. Distinct business names are exact matches after trimming and upper-casing.

Conflicts: where programs disagree (CBP, SUSB, Economic Census, QCEW), we show each figure with its definition rather than choosing one. CBP is the headline employer count because it is the most recent Census establishment count with state and size detail.

Suppression: CBP withholds a few large-size-class cells in small states (marked N); we did not impute them and use them only in US totals, where no cells are withheld. NES 2017 suppressed some minor legal-form cells; none affect totals.

Last updated 2 November 2026. Derived metrics, formulas and input rows are in derived_metrics.csv; every input is in fact_sheet.csv.

This report presents published data with its limitations. It is not legal, financial or investment advice.

Sources, ranked by quality

Tier 1: primary and official sources (22)

• [1] U.S. Census Bureau. County Business Patterns 2023, US and state files (cbp23us, cbp23st), NAICS 238220. Mid-March 2023 (establishments). Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [2] U.S. Census Bureau. County Business Patterns 2022, US file (cbp22us), NAICS 238220. 2022. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [3] U.S. Census Bureau. County Business Patterns 2019, US and state files, NAICS 238220. 2019. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [4] U.S. Census Bureau. County Business Patterns 2017, US and state files, NAICS 238220. 2017. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [5] U.S. Census Bureau. Nonemployer Statistics 2024 (NS00NONEMP), NAICS 23822, released 2026-09-29. 2024. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [6] U.S. Census Bureau. Nonemployer Statistics 2023 (NS2300NONEMP), NAICS 23822. 2023. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [7] U.S. Census Bureau. Nonemployer Statistics 2019 (NS1900NONEMP), NAICS 23822. 2019. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [8] U.S. Census Bureau. Nonemployer Statistics 2017 (NS1700NONEMP), NAICS 23822. 2017. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [9] U.S. Census Bureau. Statistics of U.S. Businesses 2022, US and state by enterprise size, 6-digit NAICS. 2022. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [10] U.S. Census Bureau. 2022 Economic Census, EC2223KOB: Construction value of business done by kind of business. 2022. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [11] U.S. Census Bureau. 2022 Economic Census, EC2223BASIC: Construction summary statistics. 2022. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [12] U.S. Census Bureau. American Community Survey 2024 1-year, table B25001 Housing Units (table-based summary file). 2024. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [13] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, 2025 annual averages by industry (NAICS 23822, 238221, 238222). 2025 annual average. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [14] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, 2019 annual averages by industry (NAICS 23822). 2019 annual average. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [15] Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. TDLR – All Licenses (open data), license_type 'A/C Contractor', data updated 2026-10-19. Snapshot 2026-10-19. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [16] Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. TDLR Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Contractors program page. Read 2026-11-02. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [17] Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation. Florida DBPR Construction licensee file CONSTRUCTIONLICENSE_1.csv (Internet Archive copy captured 2026-08-10 of the official file). Snapshot 2026-08-10. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [18] Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation. Florida DBPR Construction Industry public records page with file layout (Internet Archive copy captured 2024-05-29). Layout as captured 2024-05-29. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [19] U.S. Census Bureau. County Business Patterns methodology (noise flags and withheld cells). Read 2026-11-02. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [20] U.S. Census Bureau. Nonemployer Statistics: About (coverage rules, $1 receipts threshold for construction). Read 2026-11-02. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [21] U.S. Census Bureau. Nonemployer Statistics tables page (2024 tables released September 29, 2026). Read 2026-11-02. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [22] U.S. Census Bureau. 2022 Economic Census construction sector tables page (EC2223KOB description). Read 2026-11-02. Accessed 2026-11-02.

Tier 3: journalism and expert commentary (3)

• [23] CompanyData.com. List of HVAC Companies in the USA (vendor count based on SIC 1711). Page updated 2026-11-02. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [24] Housecall Pro. HVAC business competition around the U.S. (Yelp-based counts). Undated; page updated 2025-10-03. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [25] Start Business By State. HVAC Industry Statistics (2026): Market Size, Payroll and State Data. CBP 2023 and NES 2023. Accessed 2026-11-02.