We scanned every bill in every state legislature’s current session — 190,735 of
them across all 50 states — and found 719 that touch the licensing, insurance, bonding, or fees of
the small service businesses we track. Illinois has the most. Kentucky has the highest
concentration. And more than half of everything statehouses are doing to these trades this cycle
is aimed at one industry: child care.
The short version
Licensing rules don’t change on their own — a bill changes them. As of August 26, 2026, the
current legislative sessions of all 50 states contain 190,735 bills, and our
screening — keyword and scoring filters tuned to the ten licensed trades we cover, from
daycares to salons to tree services — flags 719 of them as touching those
businesses’ licensing, insurance, bonds, fees, or qualifications.
Where they are, and what they’re about:
The fifteen busiest statehouses for small-business licensing
| State | Bills in current session | Touching tracked trades | Per 1,000 bills |
|---|---|---|---|
| Illinois | 12,073 | 100 | 8.3 |
| New York | 25,313 | 59 | 2.3 |
| Minnesota | 10,590 | 58 | 5.5 |
| Tennessee | 9,159 | 30 | 3.3 |
| Kentucky | 1,737 | 29 | 16.7 |
| Maryland | 2,675 | 29 | 10.8 |
| Georgia | 5,480 | 25 | 4.6 |
| South Carolina | 4,008 | 25 | 6.2 |
| Virginia | 3,637 | 23 | 6.3 |
| Florida | 1,897 | 21 | 11.1 |
| Texas | 11,503 | 20 | 1.7 |
| Mississippi | 4,006 | 19 | 4.7 |
| New Jersey | 10,707 | 19 | 1.8 |
| Pennsylvania | 4,945 | 19 | 3.8 |
| Michigan | 3,930 | 18 | 4.6 |
Two different stories hide in the same table. Illinois leads on volume — 100 bills, more
than the bottom twenty states combined. But Kentucky’s short 2026 session is the most
concentrated: 1 of every 60 bills filed in Frankfort touches a licensed small trade,
nearly ten times New York’s rate. A high-volume legislature is not necessarily the one paying
the most attention to these businesses.
What the bills are about: child care dominates
Classifying the 719 bills by the trade they touch (a bill can touch more than one):
| Trade or topic | Bills |
|---|---|
| Child care / daycare | 387 |
| Salons and cosmetology | 139 |
| General business licensing | 72 |
| Insurance mandates | 44 |
| Bonds and surety | 44 |
| Landscaping and tree work | 35 |
| Food trucks and mobile food | 18 |
| Massage therapy | 14 |
| Auto dealers | 12 |
| Private investigation | 11 |
| HVAC | 6 |
| Cleaning services | 6 |
More than half the docket is child care. That matches what has actually been
passing: the last two years produced home-daycare zoning preemptions in three states
(our report) and New
Hampshire’s newly permanent statutory staffing ratios and waiver
(our
report). Cosmetology is the second-most legislated trade — licensure compacts,
hour-requirement changes, and board reorganizations account for much of it.
How to read this honestly
- “Touching” is our screen, not a legal category. A bill counts when its
title, description, or latest action matches our keyword and scoring filters for the trades we
cover, above a noise threshold. The filters are broader for some trades than others — part
of child care’s lead reflects how much child care legislation announces itself in bill titles. - Sessions differ. Some legislatures are in long two-year sessions (New York’s
25,313 bills); eight states’ current sessions hold fewer than 900 bills (Arkansas’s is 279, Wyoming’s
335) — which is why the per-1,000 column exists. Washington, D.C. is not included in this
sweep. - A bill existing is not a law. Most of these 719 will die. The point of the
index is where legislative attention is concentrated, not what has passed — when something
does pass that changes a fact we publish, it becomes a story like the two linked above.
Methodology
Bill data from LegiScan‘s master lists for each state’s
current session, retrieved August 26, 2026 (LegiScan data is licensed
CC BY 4.0). Screening: our own
keyword-classification and scoring pass matching bill titles, descriptions, and latest actions
against the ten licensed trades covered by our state guides, plus general licensing, insurance,
and bonding terms; bills scoring below a noise floor are excluded. Counts are of bills in the
current session as of the retrieval date, not bills passed. We plan to update this index
quarterly.