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US Census · CBP + Nonemployer Statistics

Which local services is your county short of?

For 4 kinds of home-service business, we count how many exist in each US county per 10,000 residents and compare that against the national rate. The counts come from the Census Bureau's County Business Patterns and Nonemployer Statistics — public, official, and checkable. Every page names its source and its vintage.

42% of these pages conclude that a county has more of a business than average — that is, they argue against starting one there. We publish those too. A number that only ever says yes is not a measurement.

What these pages can't tell you: they measure how many businesses exist, not how many customers want one. A thin category might be an opening, or it might mean fewer local customers want it — this is a lead to check, never a verdict. And where a county is too small for the comparison to mean anything, or the Census cell is suppressed, we publish no page at all rather than guess.

The counties moving against the countryWhere the local count fell while the national count grew, 2017–2023
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The counties furthest below the national rateHow many more of a business each place would hold at the national rate
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The 4 categories

These are Census industry codes, not our labels — which is why one of them lumps six different businesses together, and says so. There are only 4 because we publish a category solely when Census reports the businesses without employees too. For five others — handyman, car wash, junk removal, painting and moving — it reports only a broader parent industry, and counting home builders to describe handyman work would be a different claim than the one on the page.

  • Exterior & Building ServicesNAICS 561790 · building-exterior services (pressure washing, gutters, pools)
  • Cleaning ServicesNAICS 561720 · janitorial and cleaning services
  • Landscaping & Lawn CareNAICS 561730 · landscaping and lawn-care services
  • Pet CareNAICS 812910 · pet care services (excluding veterinary)

Browse by county

The largest 120 counties. Every other US county with usable Census data has pages too — they are in the sitemap.

Sources: US Census County Business Patterns ↗ (businesses with employees) and Nonemployer Statistics ↗ (sole proprietors). Every figure here is the two added together.

Scoutway ranks these 4 categories for your county, then gives you the playbook for the one you pick — pricing, first customers, licensing.

Join the waitlist — opens October 1