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Landscaping is a density game: year-round demand states support far more firms per capita than short-season ones, and the saturation numbers prove it — from 3 landscaping firms per 100,000 residents in District of Columbia to 80 in Vermont. A crew that would fight for bids in one state can be the only call in another.
This ranking scores every state on four federal datapoints: existing landscaping-firm density, average payroll per firm (a proxy for how much paid work each firm supports), what landscaping labor costs locally, and how fast the state is minting new businesses overall.
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† | 22 | 3.1 | $302k | $33,561 | 22.5 |
| 2 | Nevada | 834 | 25.5 | $600k | $45,668 | 21.1 |
| 3 | Texas | 5,568 | 17.8 | $534k | $48,920 | 18.8 |
| 4 | Arizona | 1,817 | 24.0 | $489k | $45,282 | 20.4 |
| 5 | Delaware* | 456 | 43.4 | $485k | $51,659 | 58.0 |
| 6 | California | 9,393 | 23.8 | $564k | $51,055 | 15.3 |
| 7 | New Mexico | 405 | 19.0 | $327k | $41,433 | 20.5 |
| 8 | Georgia | 3,242 | 29.0 | $349k | $48,102 | 24.8 |
| 9 | Florida | 10,670 | 45.6 | $304k | $41,352 | 30.3 |
| 10 | Mississippi | 601 | 20.4 | $252k | $40,090 | 20.9 |
Deep-dive guides for the leaders: how to start in Nevada · how to start in Texas · how to start in Arizona · how to start in Delaware.
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 561730 (Landscaping 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 landscaping 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† | 22 | 3.1 | $302k | $33,561 | 22.5 |
| 2 | Nevada | 834 | 25.5 | $600k | $45,668 | 21.1 |
| 3 | Texas | 5,568 | 17.8 | $534k | $48,920 | 18.8 |
| 4 | Arizona | 1,817 | 24.0 | $489k | $45,282 | 20.4 |
| 5 | Delaware* | 456 | 43.4 | $485k | $51,659 | 58.0 |
| 6 | California | 9,393 | 23.8 | $564k | $51,055 | 15.3 |
| 7 | New Mexico | 405 | 19.0 | $327k | $41,433 | 20.5 |
| 8 | Georgia | 3,242 | 29.0 | $349k | $48,102 | 24.8 |
| 9 | Florida | 10,670 | 45.6 | $304k | $41,352 | 30.3 |
| 10 | Mississippi | 601 | 20.4 | $252k | $40,090 | 20.9 |
| 11 | Colorado | 2,446 | 41.1 | $428k | $59,331 | 27.5 |
| 12 | Maryland | 2,052 | 32.8 | $454k | $48,095 | 17.3 |
| 13 | Kentucky | 1,130 | 24.6 | $360k | $45,945 | 16.6 |
| 14 | Louisiana | 979 | 21.3 | $289k | $43,345 | 17.7 |
| 15 | Hawaii | 378 | 26.1 | $473k | $50,203 | 12.9 |
| 16 | Oklahoma | 1,022 | 24.9 | $304k | $43,058 | 16.9 |
| 17 | Tennessee | 1,991 | 27.6 | $398k | $50,821 | 15.9 |
| 18 | Virginia | 3,096 | 35.1 | $395k | $47,143 | 16.9 |
| 19 | South Carolina | 1,910 | 34.9 | $311k | $44,356 | 18.7 |
| 20 | Alabama | 1,359 | 26.4 | $325k | $44,943 | 15.0 |
| 21 | Arkansas | 753 | 24.4 | $260k | $42,497 | 14.6 |
| 22 | North Carolina | 4,361 | 39.5 | $323k | $44,669 | 17.9 |
| 23 | Kansas | 991 | 33.4 | $367k | $48,880 | 14.4 |
| 24 | Utah | 1,471 | 42.0 | $287k | $53,484 | 23.8 |
| 25 | Missouri | 2,199 | 35.2 | $293k | $48,758 | 18.5 |
| 26 | Ohio | 4,228 | 35.6 | $347k | $51,280 | 15.5 |
| 27 | Indiana | 2,463 | 35.6 | $340k | $47,982 | 14.2 |
| 28 | West Virginia | 402 | 22.7 | $228k | $44,861 | 10.4 |
| 29 | Wyoming* | 339 | 57.7 | $203k | $54,002 | 145.0 |
| 30 | Washington | 3,194 | 40.1 | $318k | $52,617 | 14.7 |
| 31 | Michigan | 3,797 | 37.4 | $333k | $60,317 | 16.5 |
| 32 | Oregon | 1,893 | 44.3 | $285k | $47,815 | 14.9 |
| 33 | Montana | 694 | 61.0 | $187k | $53,425 | 28.4 |
| 34 | Alaska | 215 | 29.1 | $254k | $62,739 | 17.2 |
| 35 | Iowa | 1,242 | 38.3 | $312k | $51,801 | 11.6 |
| 36 | Pennsylvania | 5,179 | 39.6 | $295k | $53,983 | 12.8 |
| 37 | Wisconsin | 2,490 | 41.8 | $291k | $53,199 | 13.3 |
| 38 | Minnesota | 2,397 | 41.4 | $335k | $58,577 | 13.2 |
| 39 | New Jersey | 4,734 | 49.8 | $258k | $56,062 | 18.2 |
| 40 | Idaho | 1,166 | 58.2 | $271k | $51,496 | 18.2 |
| 41 | New York | 7,725 | 38.9 | $271k | $62,725 | 16.2 |
| 42 | South Dakota | 376 | 40.7 | $194k | $50,038 | 14.3 |
| 43 | Illinois | 5,034 | 39.6 | $321k | $69,346 | 15.6 |
| 44 | Nebraska | 939 | 46.8 | $273k | $52,596 | 12.1 |
| 45 | North Dakota | 285 | 35.8 | $255k | $60,006 | 12.2 |
| 46 | Connecticut | 2,170 | 59.0 | $279k | $59,876 | 14.8 |
| 47 | New Hampshire | 1,027 | 72.9 | $302k | $60,046 | 14.0 |
| 48 | Maine | 964 | 68.6 | $228k | $56,230 | 10.7 |
| 49 | Massachusetts | 4,555 | 63.8 | $306k | $74,736 | 11.9 |
| 50 | Vermont | 521 | 80.3 | $157k | $55,877 | 12.8 |
| 51 | Rhode Island | 794 | 71.4 | $267k | $73,447 | 11.3 |
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 landscaping 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 landscaping business in 2026?
By our four-factor Census-data index, the top five are District of Columbia (#1), Nevada (#2), Texas (#3), Arizona (#4), Delaware (#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 landscaping business competition?
District of Columbia has the thinnest market, with 3.1 establishments per 100,000 residents in NAICS 561730 — versus 80.3 in Vermont, 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 |