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Where you start a cleaning business changes the math more than almost any decision after it. The same two-person crew faces 11 janitorial firms per 100,000 residents in West Virginia and 45 per 100,000 in Montana — roughly 4× the competition for the same buildings. Average janitorial payroll per firm runs from under $168k to over $1,341k a year depending on the state, and labor — the biggest line in any cleaning company’s budget — swings by more than 50% between the cheapest and most expensive markets.
To rank all 50 states and DC, we scored four things from federal data: how crowded the janitorial market already is, how much revenue-supporting payroll the average firm carries, what cleaning labor costs, and how fast new businesses are being formed in the state right now.
The Top 10 States
| Rank | State | Establishments | Firms per 100k | Payroll per firm | Pay per employee | New biz apps per 1k* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | District of Columbia† | 115 | 16.4 | $1,341k | $30,004 | 22.5 |
| 2 | Georgia | 2,013 | 18.0 | $643k | $29,109 | 24.8 |
| 3 | Mississippi | 382 | 13.0 | $310k | $20,979 | 20.9 |
| 4 | Arkansas | 471 | 15.2 | $616k | $21,840 | 14.6 |
| 5 | Tennessee | 1,182 | 16.4 | $903k | $30,284 | 15.9 |
| 6 | Texas | 3,858 | 12.3 | $654k | $30,662 | 18.8 |
| 7 | Louisiana | 655 | 14.2 | $395k | $23,373 | 17.7 |
| 8 | New Mexico | 312 | 14.7 | $292k | $23,555 | 20.5 |
| 9 | Kentucky | 659 | 14.4 | $439k | $25,558 | 16.6 |
| 10 | Delaware* | 279 | 26.5 | $312k | $25,310 | 58.0 |
Deep-dive guides for the leaders: how to start in Georgia · how to start in Mississippi · how to start in Arkansas · how to start in Tennessee.
How We Ranked the States
Each state is scored on four factors, standardized as z-scores and weighted. Higher is better for revenue and momentum; lower is better for competition and labor cost.
- Market saturation (30%) — establishments per 100,000 residents in NAICS 561720 (Janitorial Services), U.S. Census Bureau County Business Patterns, 2023. Fewer competitors per capita scores higher.
- Payroll per establishment (25%) — annual payroll divided by establishment count, same source. A proxy for how much paid work the average firm supports.
- Labor cost (20%) — annual payroll per employee in the industry, same source. Cheaper labor scores higher for a new owner-operator.
- New-business momentum (25%) — business applications per 1,000 residents, Aug-2025 through Jul-2026, U.S. Census Bureau Business Formation Statistics. Values are capped at the 5th–95th percentile before scoring (see footnotes).
Population denominators use Census Bureau 2024 state population estimates. The weights are editorial judgment — we publish every underlying number in the table so you can re-rank by whichever factor matters most to your cleaning business.
Footnotes: *Wyoming and Delaware business-application counts are heavily inflated by non-resident LLC filings routed through registered agents; we cap their momentum factor before scoring and show the raw number in the table. †District of Columbia is a city-scale market and behaves unlike full states on density and payroll measures.
All 51 States and DC, Ranked
| Rank | State | Establishments | Firms per 100k | Payroll per firm | Pay per employee | New biz apps per 1k* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | District of Columbia† | 115 | 16.4 | $1,341k | $30,004 | 22.5 |
| 2 | Georgia | 2,013 | 18.0 | $643k | $29,109 | 24.8 |
| 3 | Mississippi | 382 | 13.0 | $310k | $20,979 | 20.9 |
| 4 | Arkansas | 471 | 15.2 | $616k | $21,840 | 14.6 |
| 5 | Tennessee | 1,182 | 16.4 | $903k | $30,284 | 15.9 |
| 6 | Texas | 3,858 | 12.3 | $654k | $30,662 | 18.8 |
| 7 | Louisiana | 655 | 14.2 | $395k | $23,373 | 17.7 |
| 8 | New Mexico | 312 | 14.7 | $292k | $23,555 | 20.5 |
| 9 | Kentucky | 659 | 14.4 | $439k | $25,558 | 16.6 |
| 10 | Delaware* | 279 | 26.5 | $312k | $25,310 | 58.0 |
| 11 | Missouri | 1,194 | 19.1 | $494k | $25,504 | 18.5 |
| 12 | Connecticut | 663 | 18.0 | $637k | $26,088 | 14.8 |
| 13 | Alabama | 726 | 14.1 | $383k | $23,604 | 15.0 |
| 14 | South Carolina | 1,094 | 20.0 | $445k | $24,330 | 18.7 |
| 15 | Arizona | 1,312 | 17.3 | $483k | $30,285 | 20.4 |
| 16 | West Virginia | 194 | 11.0 | $341k | $22,862 | 10.4 |
| 17 | Ohio | 1,960 | 16.5 | $468k | $26,102 | 15.5 |
| 18 | Colorado | 1,571 | 26.4 | $436k | $30,269 | 27.5 |
| 19 | Oklahoma | 606 | 14.8 | $369k | $27,808 | 16.9 |
| 20 | Michigan | 1,712 | 16.9 | $508k | $29,172 | 16.5 |
| 21 | Florida | 6,675 | 28.6 | $264k | $26,680 | 30.3 |
| 22 | Maryland | 1,436 | 22.9 | $654k | $29,477 | 17.3 |
| 23 | North Carolina | 2,277 | 20.6 | $366k | $26,355 | 17.9 |
| 24 | Illinois | 2,520 | 19.8 | $654k | $32,355 | 15.6 |
| 25 | Indiana | 1,217 | 17.6 | $384k | $26,223 | 14.2 |
| 26 | New Jersey | 2,068 | 21.8 | $504k | $30,317 | 18.2 |
| 27 | Virginia | 2,136 | 24.2 | $491k | $27,115 | 16.9 |
| 28 | Nevada | 803 | 24.6 | $341k | $27,854 | 21.1 |
| 29 | New York | 3,762 | 18.9 | $801k | $39,426 | 16.2 |
| 30 | Pennsylvania | 2,456 | 18.8 | $481k | $28,782 | 12.8 |
| 31 | California | 6,956 | 17.6 | $604k | $36,126 | 15.3 |
| 32 | Wisconsin | 1,267 | 21.2 | $392k | $25,608 | 13.3 |
| 33 | Kansas | 642 | 21.6 | $354k | $25,891 | 14.4 |
| 34 | Iowa | 647 | 20.0 | $420k | $26,426 | 11.6 |
| 35 | Utah | 1,032 | 29.5 | $324k | $30,591 | 23.8 |
| 36 | Hawaii | 365 | 25.2 | $392k | $26,276 | 12.9 |
| 37 | South Dakota | 270 | 29.2 | $199k | $20,983 | 14.3 |
| 38 | Minnesota | 1,391 | 24.0 | $361k | $30,719 | 13.2 |
| 39 | Nebraska | 519 | 25.9 | $327k | $27,230 | 12.1 |
| 40 | Idaho | 659 | 32.9 | $211k | $25,047 | 18.2 |
| 41 | Massachusetts | 1,757 | 24.6 | $467k | $32,432 | 11.9 |
| 42 | Montana | 509 | 44.8 | $194k | $26,518 | 28.4 |
| 43 | Rhode Island | 286 | 25.7 | $414k | $30,783 | 11.3 |
| 44 | Wyoming* | 257 | 43.7 | $168k | $28,018 | 145.0 |
| 45 | Vermont | 214 | 33.0 | $353k | $25,056 | 12.8 |
| 46 | New Hampshire | 373 | 26.5 | $231k | $29,469 | 14.0 |
| 47 | Oregon | 1,248 | 29.2 | $267k | $30,549 | 14.9 |
| 48 | Alaska | 257 | 34.7 | $809k | $43,343 | 17.2 |
| 49 | North Dakota | 250 | 31.4 | $317k | $28,509 | 12.2 |
| 50 | Maine | 426 | 30.3 | $244k | $27,113 | 10.7 |
| 51 | Washington | 2,166 | 27.2 | $314k | $36,308 | 14.7 |
What the Numbers Don’t Capture
No dataset measures licensing difficulty, insurance mandates, or fee structures — and those vary enormously by state. Our state-by-state guides cover exactly that layer: click any state in the table for its full startup walkthrough, or see the overall Best States to Start a Business index and the monthly business formation statistics this index draws on.
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Wherever you land, the first filing is the same
Every state on this list starts a cleaning business the same way: form the business entity. Bizee files your LLC — you pick the package and pay the state fee in any of the 51 jurisdictions ranked here.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best state to start a cleaning business in 2026?
By our four-factor Census-data index, the top five are District of Columbia (#1), Georgia (#2), Mississippi (#3), Arkansas (#4), Tennessee (#5). District of Columbia leads on the combination of market saturation, payroll per firm, labor cost, and new-business momentum.
Which state has the least cleaning business competition?
West Virginia has the thinnest market, with 11.0 establishments per 100,000 residents in NAICS 561720 — versus 44.8 in Montana, the most saturated.
Where does this data come from?
Every number is from the U.S. Census Bureau: County Business Patterns 2023 for establishments, employment, and payroll; Business Formation Statistics (Aug-2025 through Jul-2026) for new business applications; and 2024 population estimates for per-capita rates.
Sources
| Data | Source | Vintage |
|---|---|---|
| Establishments, employment, payroll by industry and state | U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns | 2023 |
| Business applications by state | U.S. Census Bureau, Business Formation Statistics | Aug-2025 through Jul-2026 |
| State population | U.S. Census Bureau, Population Estimates (NST-EST2024) | 2024 |