A note on labels first. Government data does not separate laundromats from coin-operated drycleaners. Census and SBA figures use industry code NAICS 812310, "coin-operated laundries and drycleaners". After this, the guide calls them laundromats, but those figures always include the drycleaners.
What you are buying
A laundromat mostly sells machine time. The CLA (The Laundry Association, formerly the Coin Laundry Association) puts self-service washing and drying at about 90% of a typical store's income. The rest is wash-dry-fold, commercial work and vending. In the CLA's 2024 survey, 65% of owners surveyed offered drop-off service (p.6), at a median $1.50 per pound.
Sources: CLA, Best Practices for Due Diligence in Laundromat Acquisitions (undated, PDF created Aug 2016); CLA, The Laundry Association, 2024 Laundry Industry Survey, pp.6-7.
How hard the machines work decides most of the revenue. The CLA says washers run from three to eight or more turns a day and publishes no national average, so ask the seller for meter or card-system readings by machine rather than taking a single number on trust.
Source: CLA, The Laundry Association, Industry Overview.
What a typical store looks like
The CLA surveyed 377 owners in its 2024 survey. Revenue and cost figures are for 2023. Each line below is a separate median, so they do not add up to one store.
| Median store | Figure | Page |
|---|---|---|
| Store size | 2,740 sq ft | p.9 |
| Machines | 62 | p.27 |
| Gross revenue, 2023 | $335,000 | p.21 |
| Revenue per sq ft, 2023 | $120 | p.22 |
| Rent, incl. triple-net charges (rented stores) | 18% of revenue | p.12 |
| Utilities | 20% of revenue | p.24 |
| Payroll (stores with payroll, owner's pay excluded) | 20% of revenue | p.16 |
| Operating profit before tax, loan payments and owner's pay | 27% of revenue | p.25 |
Source: CLA, The Laundry Association, 2024 Laundry Industry Survey (377 owners, run by Readex). Bars show each share on a scale of 0 to 100% of revenue.
Rent, utilities and payroll each take about a fifth of revenue at the median store. The profit line moves more than the costs do. The same survey gives a median of 22% for 2022 and 17% for 2021, against 27% for 2023. Ask for more than one year of accounts, because one good year may not repeat.
How many there are
10,890
establishments with paid employees, 2023
9,224
owner-only businesses, 2024
The Census Bureau counted 10,890 laundromat establishments with paid employees in 2023. Most are small: 8,207 had one to four employees. Another 9,224 owner-only businesses filed under the same code in 2024, taking in $107,873 each on average. Businesses with employees averaged $510,291 of receipts each in 2022.
Sources: US Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023; US Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics 2024 (NAICS 81231); US Census Bureau, Economic Census 2022.
That Census average sits well above the CLA median of $335,000. The two measure different things: Census counts only businesses with paid staff and includes drycleaners, while the CLA figure is a median of the owners who answered its survey. If a seller claims revenue above the Census average, ask for the evidence.
What stores sell for
The median laundromat sold for 3.50x its seller's discretionary earnings (SDE), across 855laundromat sales reported on BizBuySell, a business-for-sale marketplace, in 2021-25. SDE is what the store makes in a year before paying the owner, the loan and depreciation. The middle half of those sales went for between 2.72x and 4.50x. The typical store in those listings had revenue of $219,878 and SDE of $76,560, and sold for $250,000.
The CLA's own rule of thumb is three to five times net cash flow for most sales.
Sources: BizBuySell, Laundromat Business Valuation Benchmarks, sold listings 2021-25; CLA, The Laundry Association, Industry Overview.
How laundromat loans have ended
The SBA publishes every 7(a) loan it guarantees, including whether it was repaid or written off. Of loans approved in FY2010-19 to coin-operated laundries and drycleaners that had finished by 30 Sep 2026, 4.64% were charged off: 69 of 1,487. Across all 7(a) loans the rate was 7.99%.
| Loan size | Resolved loans | Written off |
|---|---|---|
| under $150K | 502 | 5.78% |
| $150K-$350K | 374 | 5.88% |
| $350K-$750K | 336 | 4.17% |
| $750K and over | 275 | 1.45% |
Source: SBA 7(a) loan file, FY2010-FY2019, as of 30 Sep 2026. Share of resolved loans charged off, by count.
Bigger loans were written off less often. Two cautions. The rate counts only loans that had finished, so loans still running are left out. And it says how loans to laundromats ended on average, not whether one store's price and earnings hold up. The full write-off table compares 26 business types and sets out the method.
Checks before you buy
- Earnings. Work out SDE from tax returns and bank statements, not the listing. If it comes to more than 27% of revenue, check that no cost has been left out.
- Utilities. Get every bill, by month. Commercial electricity averaged 13.37 cents per kWh across the US in 2025, against 8.56 in Texas and 26.16 in California, so the state matters.
- Machines. Get purchase dates. The CLA gives a useful life of 5 to 8 years for top-load washers and 10 to 15 years for front-load washers and dryers. Machines near the end of that range will need replacing. Dealer list prices are a ceiling, since dealers discount them, so get a written quote from a distributor.
- Lease. The CLA describes laundromat leases as typically 10 to 25 years, counting renewal options. If the lease ends before your loan does, ask for an extension before you buy.
- Revenue mix. Ask for the split between self-service, wash-dry-fold and vending. No published source gives a typical split.
Sources: US Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Annual, Table 2.10; CLA, The Laundry Association, Industry Overview; CLA, The Laundry Association, 2024 Laundry Industry Survey, p.25.
This guide is education and data. It is not financial, legal or tax advice.