Industry data

Car detailing statistics

Official US numbers on jobs cleaning vehicles, what those jobs pay, and the car wash and detailing businesses behind them, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and the Census Bureau, all read on November 12, 2026. Every number names its source and the year it describes. The headline numbers link straight to their source, and each table's caption links to its source in the list at the end.

The headline numbers

What these numbers are and are not

  • The BLS occupation is wider than detailing. Cleaners of vehicles and equipment (53-7061) covers car wash attendants and equipment cleaners as well as detailers. BLS's example job titles for it run from auto detailer and car wash attendant to aircraft cleaner, railroad car cleaner and beer coil cleaner. In 2025, 34.4% of its jobs were in other automotive repair and maintenance (the wider industry car washes belong to) and 18.0% at automobile dealers; others were in animal slaughtering and processing and in support activities for air transportation (table below).
  • The wage survey counts employees, not owners. BLS's Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) asks employers about their workers, so self-employed detailers are in neither its job counts nor its wages. BLS's employment matrix counts 33,200 self-employed workers in the occupation in 2025.
  • The Census class is car washes, detailing included. NAICS 811192 is named Car washes. Census's industry index puts car detailers, automotive detail shops and mobile car and truck washes in it, alongside self-service car washes and truck and bus washes. County Business Patterns counts only establishments with paid employees.
  • There is no official count of one-person detailing businesses. Census's count of businesses with no paid employees stops at a wider class that also holds oil change shops and other automotive repair (below).
  • None of it is a price or a profit. These are wages employers paid employees, and counts of jobs and businesses. None of them is what a detailing business charges for a job or what it earns. To price a job from your own hours and costs, see how to price a detailing job or try the detailing price calculator.

Wages in the occupation, May 2025

What employers paid cleaners of vehicles and equipment across all US industries, from BLS's May 2025 OEWS estimates. A percentile is the wage that share of workers earned less than: the 10th percentile, $13.17 an hour, is the wage 10% of these workers earned less than.

Cleaners of vehicles and equipment (53-7061), United States, May 2025. Source: BLS OEWS.
MeasureHourlyAnnual
10th percentile$13.17$27,380
25th percentile$14.62$30,420
Median$17.23$35,830
75th percentile$19.73$41,040
90th percentile$22.89$47,610
Mean$17.78$36,980

380,430 jobs in all. BLS gives a relative standard error of 0.8% for the employment estimate and 0.2% for the mean wage.

Jobs and wages by state, May 2025

Every state, DC and territory BLS publishes for this occupation; none has a value withheld. Jobs are employees only. Wages are in dollars.

Cleaners of vehicles and equipment (53-7061) by state, May 2025. Source: BLS OEWS.
StateJobsMedian per hourMean per hourAnnual mean
Alabama6,440$14.11$15.20$31,620
Alaska620$19.33$20.76$43,180
Arizona6,260$17.02$18.10$37,640
Arkansas5,140$16.81$16.50$34,310
California46,030$18.23$19.72$41,020
Colorado6,750$19.04$20.07$41,740
Connecticut3,480$17.25$18.45$38,380
Delaware1,280$18.00$17.89$37,200
District of Columbia350$20.53$20.72$43,090
Florida24,920$16.05$16.70$34,730
Georgia12,180$14.72$16.09$33,460
Hawaii1,180$18.06$19.11$39,750
Idaho2,840$17.13$17.24$35,850
Illinois16,350$17.27$19.49$40,540
Indiana7,520$16.80$17.35$36,090
Iowa4,190$17.27$17.33$36,040
Kansas6,410$17.96$18.02$37,470
Kentucky5,580$16.57$17.33$36,050
Louisiana4,140$13.27$14.59$30,350
Maine1,150$18.00$18.99$39,490
Maryland6,010$17.49$19.35$40,260
Massachusetts5,100$18.57$19.48$40,520
Michigan10,320$16.29$16.61$34,550
Minnesota4,460$18.07$18.83$39,170
Mississippi2,790$13.77$14.27$29,690
Missouri9,150$16.67$17.44$36,270
Montana1,490$17.55$18.16$37,780
Nebraska4,570$17.87$18.92$39,350
Nevada3,790$16.46$16.46$34,240
New Hampshire1,030$17.99$18.66$38,810
New Jersey9,930$17.83$18.74$38,980
New Mexico1,820$14.57$15.77$32,810
New York20,390$18.94$21.95$45,660
North Carolina13,820$16.09$15.86$32,980
North Dakota1,330$17.93$18.53$38,530
Ohio13,750$16.94$17.13$35,640
Oklahoma5,080$14.85$16.20$33,690
Oregon5,550$18.30$19.53$40,620
Pennsylvania11,710$16.66$17.12$35,620
Rhode Island780$17.95$19.01$39,530
South Carolina5,720$16.46$16.00$33,290
South Dakota1,510$16.85$16.60$34,520
Tennessee8,420$16.80$16.96$35,270
Texas37,750$14.16$15.35$31,930
Utah4,580$16.78$16.90$35,140
Vermont620$19.01$19.96$41,530
Virginia8,860$16.56$17.23$35,830
Washington8,270$19.26$20.58$42,800
West Virginia1,260$14.13$14.86$30,910
Wisconsin7,040$16.96$17.38$36,150
Wyoming720$16.29$16.58$34,490
Territories
Guam140$10.57$10.87$22,600
Puerto Rico1,310$10.52$11.30$23,500
U.S. Virgin Islands30$13.60$14.19$29,520
United States380,430$17.23$17.78$36,980

Each state's figures are BLS series OEUS{state code}00000000000537061{data type} in the BLS Public Data API, for example California's jobs.

Where these jobs are, 2025

BLS's employment matrix splits the occupation's 419,500 jobs in 2025 by industry: 386,300 wage and salary jobs and 33,200 self-employed workers. These are the seven largest of its most detailed rows.

Cleaners of vehicles and equipment (53-7061) by industry, 2025. Source: BLS Employment Projections, National Employment Matrix.
IndustryJobsShare
Other automotive repair and maintenance144,30034.4%
Automobile dealers75,30018.0%
Self-employed workers33,2007.9%
Automotive equipment rental and leasing23,7005.7%
Automotive body, paint, interior, and glass repair12,3002.9%
Animal slaughtering and processing10,0002.4%
Support activities for air transportation7,9001.9%

BLS publishes these in thousands (144.3 thousand is written here as 144,300). The matrix leaves out industries with fewer than 50 jobs, confidential data or poor-quality data, so the rows don't add up to the total. Its count is made differently from the OEWS count above, so the two totals don't match.

Projected change, 2025 to 2035

Cleaners of vehicles and equipment (53-7061), 2025 and projected 2035. Source: BLS Employment Projections.
Jobs, 2025419,500
Jobs, 2035 (projected)435,800
Change+16,300 (+3.9%)
Change for all occupations+3.5%
Openings a year, 2025 to 2035 (annual average)51,500
Median annual wage, 2025$35,830

The projections table publishes jobs in thousands; its 2025 total includes self-employed workers. Its median annual wage is the OEWS annual median above.

Car wash and detailing businesses with employees, 2023

Census County Business Patterns for NAICS 811192, Car washes, the class Census puts car detailers and mobile car washes in. It counts establishments (places of business) with paid employees, and their employees during the week of March 12, 2023. Payroll is in thousands of dollars, as Census publishes it. Census adds noise to employee and payroll figures to keep individual businesses' data confidential: under 2%, or 2% to 5% where marked †. Establishment counts carry no noise flag.

Car washes (NAICS 811192) with paid employees, by state, 2023. Source: Census County Business Patterns.
StateEstablish­mentsEmployeesAnnual payroll ($1,000)
Alabama2792,06157,231
Alaska463018,030
Arizona4025,068145,701
Arkansas2051,540† (2% to 5% noise)40,991† (2% to 5% noise)
California2,23123,493743,174
Colorado3902,96188,615
Connecticut2181,47344,332
Delaware5548613,033
District of Columbia9115† (2% to 5% noise)4,283† (2% to 5% noise)
Florida1,66812,138356,241
Georgia6916,318208,895
Hawaii60422† (2% to 5% noise)13,952
Idaho13997234,749
Illinois7836,215172,081
Indiana4173,63293,649
Iowa3022,18561,996
Kansas2092,29761,132† (2% to 5% noise)
Kentucky2242,13157,437
Louisiana2131,77542,406
Maine68224† (2% to 5% noise)8,485
Maryland2882,98895,947
Massachusetts4452,28896,565
Michigan6685,290138,486
Minnesota2322,094† (2% to 5% noise)60,976† (2% to 5% noise)
Mississippi10477717,806
Missouri3743,807109,717† (2% to 5% noise)
Montana10646414,111
Nebraska1671,94548,470
Nevada1981,60443,117
New Hampshire8727711,850
New Jersey6616,073234,038
New Mexico13491830,750
New York9647,890241,375
North Carolina6156,166† (2% to 5% noise)146,245
North Dakota6045913,870
Ohio7165,733157,476
Oklahoma2351,942† (2% to 5% noise)52,526
Oregon2441,46949,557
Pennsylvania6284,240113,939
Rhode Island7638312,535
South Carolina2882,58764,614
South Dakota6455513,111
Tennessee3712,86995,660
Texas1,85821,902586,901
Utah2802,21660,985
Vermont251265,005
Virginia4814,560134,054
Washington4282,77895,466
West Virginia80341† (2% to 5% noise)8,377† (2% to 5% noise)
Wisconsin2611,75053,130
Wyoming603468,881
United States19,807172,6445,071,953

All 50 states and DC, every row the Census state file has for this class. Puerto Rico is in a separate Census file and isn't included. † 2% to 5% noise.

Businesses with no employees, 2024

Census's Nonemployer Statistics count businesses with no paid employees, which is where one-person detailing businesses would be. But they don't break out car washes: the finest class published is 81119, other automotive repair and maintenance, which holds three industries:

In 2024 that wider class had 105,290 businesses with no paid employees, with receipts of $5,122,115 thousand (low noise, under 2%). How many of them are car washes or detailers isn't published, and we don't estimate it.

What NAICS 811192 includes

Every entry the Census 2022 NAICS index lists under 811192, Car washes:

And the example job titles BLS lists for cleaners of vehicles and equipment (53-7061): Aircraft Cleaner, Auto Cleaner, Auto Detailer, Automobile Detailer, Beer Coil Cleaner, Boat Detailer, Bus Cleaner, Bus Washer, Car Wash Attendant, Car Washer, Equipment Cleaner, Machine Cleaner, Railroad Car Cleaner, Truck Washer.

Sources

Each source is the latest the agency publishes for that table. We read them all on November 12, 2026. The BLS wage and job figures were read through the BLS Public Data API. The first three headline numbers link to the API's raw data for their series, which opens with BLS's notes that it has no data for 2023 or 2024; the figure is the “value” listed for 2025. Each state's figures are in the series named under the state table. The Census figures are from the data files Census publishes, linked below.

How to cite this page

Fourth Bucket, “Car detailing statistics,” fourthbucket.com/car-detailing-statistics, figures read November 12, 2026 from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau.

Where you can, name the agency and the year beside each number too, as this page does, and tell us if a number here doesn't match its source.

Frequently asked questions

How many car detailers are there in the US?

Neither the Bureau of Labor Statistics nor the Census Bureau publishes a count of detailers alone. The closest is the BLS occupation cleaners of vehicles and equipment (53-7061), whose example job titles include auto detailer, car wash attendant and equipment cleaner: it had 380,430 jobs in May 2025. That survey counts employees only. BLS's employment matrix counts 33,200 self-employed workers in the occupation in 2025.

How much do car detailers make an hour?

BLS doesn't publish wages for detailers alone. For cleaners of vehicles and equipment, the occupation that includes them, the median hourly wage was $17.23 in May 2025 and the mean $17.78 ($36,980 a year). The 10th percentile was $13.17 an hour and the 90th percentile $22.89. These are wages employers paid employees, not what a detailing business charges for a job or what an owner earns.

Which states have the most vehicle cleaning jobs?

In May 2025, BLS counted the most jobs in the occupation cleaners of vehicles and equipment in California (46,030), Texas (37,750) and Florida (24,920).

Which state pays vehicle cleaners the most?

Among the 50 states and DC in May 2025, the annual mean wage for cleaners of vehicles and equipment was highest in New York ($45,660) and lowest in Mississippi ($29,690).

How many car wash and detailing businesses are there?

The Census Bureau counted 19,807 establishments with paid employees in NAICS 811192, Car washes, in 2023; Census's industry index lists car detailers, automotive detail shops and mobile car and truck washes in that class. They had 172,644 employees during the week of March 12, 2023. Census doesn't publish a count of car washes without employees on their own: its nonemployer count stops at the wider class 81119, other automotive repair and maintenance, which had 105,290 businesses with no paid employees in 2024 and also holds oil change shops and other automotive repair.

Are vehicle cleaning jobs projected to grow?

BLS projects employment in the occupation cleaners of vehicles and equipment to go from 419,500 in 2025 to 435,800 in 2035, a change of 3.9% (16,300 jobs), against 3.5% for all occupations, with an annual average of 51,500 openings over the decade. The two BLS counts are made differently and don't match: the projections' 2025 total includes 33,200 self-employed workers, whom the wage survey leaves out.

Keep reading: How to price a detailing job · Detailing price calculator · How to quote a detail from photos

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