Landscaping Industry Statistics 2026: Firms, Jobs and Pay by State

• QCEW private jobs, annual average
• CES all employees, annual average

Source: BLS QCEW annual averages (NAICS 561730, private) and BLS CES CEU6056173001 annual averages, accessed Oct 2026

Show the numbers

	QCEW private jobs, annual average	CES all employees, annual average
2015	713.60	718.40
2016	742.10	755.40
2017	762.70	779.90
2018	781.90	791.50
2019	807.10	813.90
2020	806.40	820.10
2021	836	843.30
2022	860	866.50
2023	878.90	887.50
2024	900.70	910.20
2025	912.80	918.40

Every number on this page comes from a federal statistical release that anyone can download and check: the Census Bureau’s 2022 Economic Census, County Business Patterns (CBP) 2023 and Nonemployer Statistics 2024, plus the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ QCEW, CES, CPI and OEWS programs. Nothing comes from a paywalled market-research report, and each table names the release and data period it was built from.

The industry definition is the government’s: NAICS 561730, Landscaping Services, which covers lawn and landscape maintenance, planting, and landscape design paired with installing walkways, retaining walls, ponds and similar features. Tree services, lawn care and hardscape crews mostly fall inside it; nurseries, garden centers, golf courses and municipal parks crews do not. Want the headline counts for your state? Skip to the 50-state table.

How big is the landscaping industry?

The 2022 Economic Census (table EC2256BASIC), the most recent, counted 114,570 employer firms operating 116,787 establishments, with 808,067 paid employees and $115.4 billion in revenue. That works out to $988,173 in revenue per establishment, with payroll taking 32.3 percent of revenue.

Add the one-person side of the trade. Census Nonemployer Statistics for 2022 counted 523,071 landscaping businesses with no paid employees and $18.0 billion in receipts. Together that is about $133.4 billion in 2022 revenue across roughly 637,600 businesses (114,570 employer firms plus 523,071 nonemployers).

Newer counts are smaller in scope but fresher. County Business Patterns 2023 shows 117,969 employer establishments, 802,899 paid employees in the March 12 pay period and $41.2 billion in annual payroll. Nonemployer Statistics 2024 shows 537,970 solo businesses (up 4.1 percent from 2023) with $20.0 billion in receipts. BLS QCEW puts 2025 private employment at an annual average of 912,821 jobs across 123,326 establishments, paying an average of $52,284.

Swipe the table sideways to see every column.

Measure	Value	Data period	Source
Employer revenue	$115.4 billion	2022	Economic Census
Nonemployer receipts	$18.0 billion	2022	Nonemployer Statistics
Employer firms	114,570	2022	Economic Census
Employer establishments	117,969	2023	County Business Patterns
Nonemployer (solo) businesses	537,970	2024	Nonemployer Statistics
Nonemployer receipts	$20.0 billion	2024	Nonemployer Statistics
Paid employees, March 12	802,899	2023	County Business Patterns
Private jobs, annual average	912,821	2025	BLS QCEW
All employees, seasonally adjusted	918,800 (preliminary)	Aug 2026	BLS CES
Average annual pay per job	$52,284	2025	BLS QCEW
Average hourly earnings	$28.78 (preliminary)	Aug 2026	BLS CES
Landscaping and groundskeeping workers in the industry	573,760 (60.2% of industry jobs)	May 2025	BLS OEWS
Revenue share of 4 largest firms	7.4%	2022	Economic Census

Why landscaping industry numbers online don’t match

Search for landscaping industry statistics and you will see three numbers repeated: $188.8 billion in revenue, 692,777 businesses and 1.4 million employees. They trace to IBISWorld, a paywalled market-research publisher, as the National Association of Landscape Professionals statistics page states. IBISWorld’s own public industry page, checked in October 2026, now shows different figures: $176.7 billion for 2026 and 556,000 businesses, down 2.0 percent a year since 2021. The same publisher’s business count moved by more than 130,000 between editions.

Paywalled estimates can’t be audited, so we can’t tell you which edition is right. What we can do is put the auditable federal counts next to them and explain the gaps.

Figure	Widely quoted	Federal count	Why they differ
Revenue	$188.8B (2025, IBISWorld via NALP); $176.7B (2026, IBISWorld)	$133.4B in 2022 ($115.4B employer + $18.0B solo). Our payroll-scaled estimate for 2025 is about $159B (see method)	Census counts revenue of establishments classified in NAICS 561730 only. Private estimates may include landscaping done by firms classified elsewhere and use their own models.
Businesses	692,777 (IBISWorld via NALP); 556,000 (IBISWorld 2026)	655,939 locations: 117,969 employer establishments (2023) + 537,970 solo businesses (2024)	Federal solo counts come from tax returns and exclude businesses with under $1,000 in receipts. The solo count rose 4.1% in 2024, which does not fit a declining business count.
Workers	“More than 1.4 million” (IBISWorld via NALP)	912,821 private wage jobs (2025) + 537,970 solo operators (2024) = about 1.45 million	The 1.4 million figure is close to wage jobs plus solo owners combined. Many solo businesses are side work, so this is a ceiling for full-time equivalents, not a head count.
Grounds workers, all industries	Often quoted as industry size	1,299,200 grounds maintenance jobs in 2025, all industries incl. self-employed	From BLS Employment Projections. Only 48% of these jobs sit in the services-to-buildings industry group; the rest are at golf courses, schools, governments and the self-employed.

Our read: the federal data describe an industry of about $133 billion in 2022 and, by our estimate, about $159 billion in 2025, not $177 billion to $189 billion. The 2022 figure is a census total; the 2025 figure scales employer revenue by the 20.3 percent growth in the industry’s QCEW wage bill from 2022 to 2025 and adds 2024 solo receipts. That is a labeled estimate, not a census count, and the next hard number arrives with the 2027 Economic Census.

Landscaping businesses by state

The table below combines four federal releases for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Florida has the most employer establishments (10,670), California the most paid employees (103,803) and the most revenue ($13.9 billion), and Texas the most solo landscapers (62,230). Per resident, the picture flips: Vermont, New Hampshire and Rhode Island have the most employer landscaping locations per 100,000 people, while Mississippi, Louisiana and Georgia have the most one-person operations.

Swipe the table sideways to see every column.

State	Employer establishments (2023)	Paid employees (Mar 2023)	Annual payroll, $M (2023)	Solo businesses (2024)	Employer estabs per 100k residents	Solo businesses per 100k residents	Employer revenue, $M (2022)
United States	117,969	802,899	41,177	537,970	35.0	158.2	115,406
Alabama	1,359	9,837	442.1	13,588	26.6	263.2	1,288
Alaska	215	870	54.6	662	29.3	89.9	149
Arizona	1,817	19,632	889.0	9,614	24.4	127.2	2,455
Arkansas	753	4,607	195.8	7,160	24.5	231.3	549
California	9,393	103,803	5,299.7	50,994	24.0	129.5	13,911
Colorado	2,446	17,630	1,046.0	7,324	41.4	122.3	2,849
Connecticut	2,170	10,103	604.9	5,457	59.6	148.5	1,749
Delaware	456	4,285	221.4	1,385	44.0	131.9	566
District of Columbia	22	198 †	6.6	223	3.2	32.3	14
Florida	10,670	78,430	3,243.2	52,323	46.5	224.9	9,502
Georgia	3,242	23,535	1,132.1	32,209	29.3	287.5	3,665
Hawaii	378	3,559	178.7	2,658	26.3	185.2	364
Idaho	1,166	6,135	315.9	2,420	59.2	120.9	843
Illinois	5,034	23,331	1,617.9	14,586	39.8	114.8	4,410
Indiana	2,463	17,467	838.1	10,493	35.8	151.3	2,227
Iowa	1,242	7,493	388.1	4,495	38.6	139.1	1,221
Kansas	991	7,446	364.0	4,515	33.6	152.3	1,029
Kentucky	1,130	8,853	406.7	7,696	24.8	167.9	1,506
Louisiana	979	6,534	283.2	14,635	21.3	317.1	887
Maine	964	3,914	220.1	3,033	68.8	215.3	663
Maryland	2,052	19,366	931.4	7,961	33.1	127.5	2,533
Massachusetts	4,555	18,649	1,393.8	7,393	64.4	103.6	4,137
Michigan	3,797	20,967	1,264.7	17,300	37.7	171.3	3,512
Minnesota	2,397	13,696	802.3	5,879	41.7	101.4	2,125
Mississippi	601	3,779	151.5	10,133	20.4	343.5	512
Missouri	2,199	13,201	643.7	10,482	35.4	167.9	1,681
Montana	694	2,435	130.1	1,410	61.4	123.9	361
Nebraska	939	4,878	256.6	2,900	47.2	144.6	796
Nevada	834	10,949	500.0	2,831	26.0	87.0	1,252
New Hampshire	1,027	5,174	310.7	1,997	73.3	141.8	838
New Jersey	4,734	21,755	1,219.6	7,190	50.4	75.6	3,819
New Mexico	405	3,200	132.6	1,922	19.1	90.4	308
New York	7,725	33,359	2,092.4	15,009	39.0	75.0	6,017
North Carolina	4,361	31,542	1,409.0	24,341	40.1	220.2	4,015
North Dakota	285	1,209	72.5	939	36.2	118.4	242
Ohio	4,228	28,603	1,466.8	16,999	35.8	143.3	3,884
Oklahoma	1,022	7,210	310.4	8,209	25.2	200.3	878
Oregon	1,893	11,299	540.3	4,413	44.5	103.5	1,322
Pennsylvania	5,179	28,339	1,529.8	13,911	39.8	106.6	4,428
Rhode Island	794	2,885	211.9	1,152	72.1	103.7	552
South Carolina	1,910	13,383	593.6	13,784	35.4	251.1	1,867
South Dakota	376	1,460	73.1	1,157	41.0	124.8	215
Tennessee	1,991	15,585	792.0	17,799	27.8	245.5	1,968
Texas	5,568	60,794	2,974.1	62,230	18.1	198.7	8,513
Utah	1,471	7,888	421.9	3,323	42.6	94.9	1,329
Vermont	521	1,462 †	81.7	1,695	80.4	262.2	239
Virginia	3,096	25,931	1,222.5	13,619	35.5	154.4	3,130
Washington	3,194	19,278	1,014.4	6,595	40.7	83.2	2,648
West Virginia	402	2,048	91.9 †	2,184	22.7	123.6	227
Wisconsin	2,490	13,641	725.7	7,054	42.0	118.4	2,013
Wyoming	339	1,272	68.7	689	58.0	117.4	194

Download the data. The CSV files behind every table on this page, including a merged state file with the population denominators and per-100k rates. They are free to reuse with a link back to this page.

• State table: establishments, employees, payroll, solo businesses, per-100k rates and 2022 revenue (CSV)
• County Business Patterns 2023, by state (CSV)
• Nonemployer Statistics 2024, by state (CSV)
• Economic Census 2022 revenue, by state (CSV)
• QCEW 2025 employment and pay, by state (CSV)
• QCEW national trend, 2014 to 2025 (CSV)
• CES monthly employment and earnings, 2019 to 2026 (CSV)
• Economic Census 2022 revenue by product line (CSV)
• Economic Census 2022 firm size, legal form and concentration (CSV)
• County Business Patterns 2023 establishment size classes (CSV)
• County Business Patterns 2023, by metro area (CSV)
• CPI and PPI series for lawn care and supplies, 2019 to 2026 (CSV)

What the state numbers show

• Density tracks the Northeast, not the Sun Belt. Vermont has 80.4 employer landscaping establishments per 100,000 residents, more than four times Texas (18.1). The national rate is 35.0 (CBP 2023; Census population estimates).
• Texas firms are bigger. Texas averaged 10.9 paid employees per employer establishment in March 2023, against 4.1 in Massachusetts and 6.8 nationally. It also had the highest revenue per establishment of any state in 2022, $1.54 million (Economic Census 2022).
• The District of Columbia is a special case. It has 22 employer establishments and 198 March employees. CBP counts each establishment where it is located, so suburban Maryland and Virginia firms that work inside the city are counted in those states (CBP glossary).
• Solo operators earn very different amounts by state. Average receipts per nonemployer landscaping business were $58,544 in Massachusetts and $58,255 in Connecticut, against $21,891 in Louisiana and $22,606 in Mississippi (NES 2024).

The South runs on solo operators; the Northeast on small payroll firms

Counting both employer and nonemployer businesses shows two different industries. Nationally there are 4.6 solo landscaping businesses for every employer establishment. In the South the ratio is 7.3 to 1; in the Northeast it is 2.1 to 1. Mississippi (16.9), Louisiana (14.9) and Texas (11.2) have the highest ratios; Rhode Island (1.5), New Jersey (1.5) and Massachusetts (1.6) the lowest.

For an operator, that ratio is a rough proxy for price competition from owner-operators who carry no payroll, workers’ comp or unemployment insurance costs. A Gulf Coast maintenance company bidding residential mowing competes against far more one-truck operators than a Boston-area company does. It is a proxy only: the data can’t say how many solo businesses chase the same customers.

Census region	Employer establishments (2023)	Solo businesses (2024)	Employer estabs per 100k	Solo per 100k	Solo per employer establishment	Employees per employer establishment	Avg receipts per solo business ($)
Northeast	27,669	56,837	48.2	98.1	2.1	4.5	47,725
Midwest	26,441	96,799	38.2	139.2	3.7	5.8	33,693
South	39,614	289,479	30.3	218.2	7.3	8.0	34,591
West	24,245	94,855	30.6	118.7	3.9	8.6	42,587
United States	117,969	537,970	35.0	158.2	4.6	6.8	37,227

One caution on the Northeast’s low employees-per-establishment figure: CBP counts employees in the pay period including March 12, before the season starts in cold states. Census says establishments that had no employees in mid-March but paid someone during the year are still counted, in the under-5 size class (CBP glossary). So March headcounts understate peak-season crews in the North more than in Florida or Arizona.

Is the landscaping industry growing?

Yes, though 2026 has been flat. Private landscaping employment rose from 713,552 in 2015 to 912,821 in 2025, up 27.9 percent, according to BLS QCEW annual averages. Growth slowed each year after 2021: +3.7 percent in 2021, +2.9 percent in 2022, +2.2 percent in 2023, +2.5 percent in 2024 and +1.3 percent in 2025. Establishment growth nearly stopped in 2025 (+0.2 percent, to 123,326).

The monthly survey shows the same plateau. Seasonally adjusted employment in landscaping services was 933.1 thousand in January 2026 and 918.8 thousand in August 2026 (preliminary), 0.5 percent above August 2025 (BLS CES series CES6056173001). Pay kept rising: average hourly earnings reached $28.78 in August 2026, and the 2025 annual average of $27.63 was 58.8 percent above 2015 (BLS CES series CES6056173003).

Landscaping industry statistics by year

Year	Private jobs (annual avg)	Change	Establishments	Avg annual pay ($)	Avg hourly earnings ($)
2014	685,067	n/a	100,703	31,253	n/a
2015	713,552	+4.2%	102,632	32,684	17.40
2016	742,142	+4.0%	104,561	33,872	17.94
2017	762,743	+2.8%	105,853	35,159	18.67
2018	781,885	+2.5%	108,351	36,724	19.53
2019	807,069	+3.2%	110,675	38,451	20.15
2020	806,398	-0.1%	112,903	41,158	21.27
2021	836,041	+3.7%	116,677	43,663	22.76
2022	860,032	+2.9%	120,144	46,148	24.90
2023	878,894	+2.2%	122,438	48,279	25.35
2024	900,726	+2.5%	123,133	50,368	26.32
2025	912,821	+1.3%	123,326	52,284	27.63

Fastest- and slowest-growing states

Swipe the table sideways to see every column.

State	Private jobs 2015	Private jobs 2025	Change 2015–2025	Change 2024–2025	Avg annual pay 2025 ($)
Idaho	4,060	7,590	+87.0%	+4.9%	47,447
Montana	2,136	3,967	+85.7%	+9.7%	46,649
Utah	6,774	11,959	+76.5%	-0.4%	48,575
South Dakota	1,231	1,973	+60.3%	+4.0%	44,862
Nebraska	3,732	5,928	+58.8%	+5.7%	47,100
Delaware	2,789	4,188	+50.2%	+0.2%	50,335
Rhode Island	2,932	4,314	+47.1%	-0.4%	56,353
Maine	3,894	5,514	+41.6%	+2.6%	53,315
New Hampshire	4,371	6,141	+40.5%	+2.4%	58,625
North Carolina	24,773	34,490	+39.2%	+2.4%	48,834
Slowest five
Louisiana	6,049	6,875	+13.7%	+1.3%	45,588
Maryland	17,930	20,203	+12.7%	-0.3%	54,778
Illinois	28,561	31,981	+12.0%	+0.3%	54,182
Mississippi	3,927	4,305	+9.6%	+2.9%	43,823
District of Columbia	294	282	-4.1%	+1.1%	50,679

The Mountain West and northern New England grew fastest over the decade: Idaho (+87.0 percent), Montana (+85.7 percent) and Utah (+76.5 percent). In the latest year the map is mixed: between 2024 and 2025, 15 states lost landscaping jobs, including California, New York, Massachusetts, Washington and Utah (BLS QCEW).

What landscaping companies sell

The Economic Census product-line tables split employer revenue by service. These lines are nested, so sub-lines (indented) sit inside the line above them and should not be added to it. Census publishes them for the nation only.

Swipe the table sideways to see every column.

Product line (Census label)	Revenue, $B	Share of industry revenue	Establishments reporting it	Share of establishments
Exterior commercial landscaping services	61.93	53.7%	81,273	69.6%
Other exterior commercial landscaping services	23.07	20.0%	31,468	26.9%
Grass cutting and grooming services	16.73	14.5%	55,766	47.8%
Ornamental plant, shrub and tree services	12.59	10.9%	47,572	40.7%
Topical lawn fertilization and propagation	6.44	5.6%	29,367	25.1%
Weed control services	3.09	2.7%	32,503	27.8%
Residential landscaping services	36.75	31.8%	86,610	74.2%
Residential landscape construction, excluding decks	8.09	7.0%	17,312	14.8%
Other residential landscape construction	5.32	4.6%	12,841	11.0%
Residential irrigation and sprinkler systems	2.77	2.4%	12,060	10.3%
Snow removal for parking lots and driveways	3.27	2.8%	16,814	14.4%
Landscape architecture, residential projects	1.11	1.0%	6,897	5.9%
Landscape architecture, nonresidential projects	0.78	0.7%	2,868	2.5%
Interior commercial landscaping (plantscaping)	0.62	0.5%	2,094	1.8%

Two things stand out. Snow removal brought in $3.27 billion, 2.8 percent of revenue, and 14.4 percent of establishments reported it, making it the largest cold-season service line in the Census tables. And design work is small inside this industry: landscape architecture for residential and nonresidential projects together was 1.7 percent of revenue. Most of the country’s 19,600 landscape architects (11,720) work in architectural and engineering firms; 4,860 work in landscaping companies (BLS OEWS May 2025).

Pricing your own mix? Our guide to bidding landscaping jobs shows how to turn labor, equipment and overhead into a price, and the homeowner side of the same math is in how much landscaping costs.

How fragmented is the landscaping industry?

Very. The 4 largest landscaping firms earned 7.4 percent of industry revenue in 2022 and the 50 largest earned 15.5 percent (Economic Census concentration tables). Thirty-six firms took in $100 million or more each, $16.7 billion between them. At the other end, 70.6 percent of employer establishments had fewer than 5 employees in March 2023 (CBP 2023).

Employees per establishment	Establishments	Share of establishments	Paid employees	Share of employees
1-4	83,241	70.6%	114,351	14.2%
5-9	17,046	14.4%	111,147	13.8%
10-19	9,491	8.0%	127,121	15.8%
20-49	5,814	4.9%	173,895	21.7%
50-99	1,601	1.4%	106,998	13.3%
100-249	599	0.5%	88,377	11.0%
250-499	141	0.1%	48,100	6.0%
500-999	26	0.0%	16,797	2.1%
1000+	10	0.0%	16,113	2.0%

Annual revenue of firm	Firms	Share of firms	Revenue, $B	Share of revenue
Under $100K	8,422	10.5%	0.51	0.5%
$100K–$250K	17,390	21.6%	2.98	2.8%
$250K–$500K	18,069	22.4%	6.53	6.0%
$500K–$1M	16,433	20.4%	11.60	10.7%
$1M–$2.5M	12,720	15.8%	19.47	18.0%
$2.5M–$5M	4,542	5.6%	15.61	14.4%
$5M–$10M	1,867	2.3%	12.77	11.8%
$10M–$25M	807	1.0%	11.78	10.9%
$25M–$100M	249	0.3%	10.32	9.5%
$100M or more	36	0.0%	16.72	15.4%

Read the two tables together. Among firms that operated all year, 54.5 percent had revenue under $500,000 but they earned 9.3 percent of the money. Firms at $1 million or more were a quarter of the count and took 80.0 percent of revenue. Another 34,035 firms, 29.7 percent of all employer firms, did not operate for the whole of 2022, meaning they opened or closed during the year; Census does not split the two.

Solo businesses are smaller still. Of the 537,970 nonemployer landscaping businesses in 2024, 65.5 percent reported receipts under $25,000 and only 1,569 reported $500,000 or more (NES 2024 receipts-size classes). Many are side jobs, not full-time companies.

The 15 largest metro markets for landscaping

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Metro area	Employer establishments (2023)	Paid employees (Mar 2023)	Employees per establishment	Payroll per employee ($, 2023)	Revenue, $B (2022)
New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ	8,059	32,610	4.0	62,484	6.38
Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA	2,038	27,960	13.7	47,821	3.15
Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX	1,642	21,974	13.4	49,117	2.95
Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV	1,733	18,860	10.9	48,966	2.45
Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN	3,803	18,557	4.9	74,626	3.68
Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL	2,293	18,406	8.0	39,789	2.23
Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD	2,642	17,236	6.5	56,062	2.77
Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX	1,077	16,833	15.6	52,081	2.35
Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ	1,224	15,381	12.6	46,556	2.02
Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA	1,908	14,777	7.7	52,428	2.54
Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA	1,010	14,098	14.0	46,586	1.83
Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH	2,876	12,494	4.3	74,429	2.68
San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA	1,169	12,331	10.6	58,371	1.92
Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, FL	1,276	11,577	9.1	42,696	1.45
San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, CA	943	11,099	11.8	50,050	1.39

New York-Newark-Jersey City is the biggest market by every measure, but its 8,059 establishments average 4.1 employees. Houston (15.6), Riverside-San Bernardino (14.0), Los Angeles (13.7) and Dallas-Fort Worth (13.4) run much larger crews per location. Chicago and Boston have the highest payroll per employee among the 15, about $74,600 and $74,400; that measure divides a full year of payroll by a March headcount, so it can run high where winter staffing is thin.

Lawn care prices have risen twice as fast as inflation

The Consumer Price Index for gardening and lawncare services rose 52.0 percent from September 2019 to September 2025, against 26.5 percent for all items (BLS CPI series CUUR0000SEHP02; CUUR0000SA0). In the year to September 2025 alone it rose 13.9 percent while overall prices rose 3.0 percent. The latest reading, August 2026, is 25.1 percent above August 2024; all items rose 6.4 percent over the same two years.

Input costs moved too. The producer price index for fertilizer materials rose 37.8 percent from August 2024 to August 2026, and commercial turf and grounds-care equipment rose 31.7 percent from August 2019 to August 2026; the 2026 values are preliminary (BLS PPI WPU0652; WPU111401). BLS publishes no producer price index for landscaping services themselves.

Month	Gardening and lawncare services (Sep 2019 = 100)	All items (Sep 2019 = 100)
Sep 2019	100.0	100.0
Sep 2020	102.3	101.4
Sep 2021	106.5	106.8
Sep 2023	120.9	119.9
Sep 2024	133.5	122.8
Sep 2025	152.0	126.5
Aug 2026	163.5	130.5

Pay and the workforce

Landscaping is a labor business: payroll was 32.3 percent of employer revenue in 2022 (Economic Census), and landscaping and groundskeeping workers held 573,760 of the industry’s jobs, 60.2 percent, in May 2025 (BLS OEWS industry staffing pattern). First-line supervisors held another 90,190. Average annual pay per private job was $52,284 in 2025, up 60.0 percent from $32,684 in 2015 (BLS QCEW). Massachusetts paid the most ($66,289) and Mississippi the least ($43,823).

Hourly medians by state and metro, and the gap between crew and supervisor pay, are in our landscaper salary report. If you are weighing the trade as a career, how to become a landscaper covers the entry routes, and state rules for contractors are in our licensing table.

What the data can’t tell you

• Profit margins. No federal release reports profit for NAICS 561730. Census gives revenue and payroll, not materials, fuel, equipment or owner pay. Any margin figure you see comes from a private survey.
• Revenue after 2022. The Economic Census runs every five years; the next one covers 2027. Our 2025 revenue figure is an estimate scaled from payroll, not a count.
• Residential versus commercial mowing. Census reports grass cutting inside a line it labels exterior commercial landscaping, separate from a residential landscaping line. The labels don’t let you cleanly split homeowner and commercial maintenance revenue.
• Cash and unreported work. Nonemployer counts come from business tax returns. Work never reported to the IRS is invisible, and so are businesses with under $1,000 in receipts.
• Peak-season headcount. CBP counts March 12 employment; QCEW averages the year. Neither shows the summer peak.
• Landscaping done by other industries. Golf course crews, school and municipal grounds staff, property managers and builders do landscaping work that is not in NAICS 561730.
• Business failure rates for landscaping alone. Survival data exist only at the sector level.

More federal datasets on the trade, including wages, prices and licensing, are collected on our Data desk.