NAICS 812320 · California overview

Dry Cleaning & Laundry Services in Riverside County

Riverside County had 98 Dry Cleaning establishments in 2023, ranking 4 of 35 California counties and accounting for 4.9% of the statewide total.

Establishments (2023)
98
Rank 4 of 35 counties
Employees
434
Mid-March employment
Annual payroll
$13M
All establishments
Per 10k residents
0.4
2,544,916 residents

More recent reading

BLS QCEW, 2026Q1

The figures above are County Business Patterns, which carries the size distribution but runs about two years behind. The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes quarterly, so this is the same industry roughly 3 years later. The two count different universes, Census counts establishments with paid employees in the March pay period and BLS counts worksites covered by unemployment insurance during the quarter, so the numbers are not directly comparable and either can be the larger.

Establishments
96
2026Q1
Employment
457
Quarter-end level
Average weekly wage
$669
Per covered worker
Quarterly trend
+3.2%
2025Q2 to 2026Q1
Concentration vs the national averageBLS, 2026Q1

0.98 location quotient. Dry Cleaning is about as concentrated in Riverside County as it is nationally.

Computed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, not derived here. Above 1.0 means the industry is a larger share of local employment than of national employment.

Establishments by size

Employee-count distribution for Dry Cleaning in Riverside County. 9 of 98 establishments (9%) employ 10 or more people, the practical floor for most acquisition financing.

EmployeesEstablishmentsShareDistribution
1-46566.3%
5-92323.5%
10-1999.2%

Establishment trend

Year-over-year establishment counts, County Business Patterns. Net decline of 6.7% since 2020.

YearEstablishmentsChange
2020105n/a
2021111+6
2022103-8
202398-5

How this market compares

Riverside County against every other county in California on the same measure. The median excludes places under 2,000 residents, where per-capita figures are arithmetically true but analytically useless.

Below average0.4 per 10,000 residents, against a state median of 0.5

Fewer businesses per resident than the typical California market. Often an underserved market, though it can also mean residents buy this service in a neighbouring town.

Vs state median
-17%
Businesses per resident
Rank by count
#4
of 35 counties
Rank by density
#22
of 35 ranked
Since 2020
-7%
Change in establishments

Density compares dry cleaning & laundry services provision per resident. It does not measure revenue, profitability or whether a market is worth entering.

Business size mix

Riverside tracks the California size distribution closely.

Share of establishmentsRiversideCaliforniaDifference
Under 5 employeesOwner-operated, often no management layer66.3%67.8%-1.4%
5 to 49 employeesThe range most individual buyers target32.7%28.8%+3.9%
10 or more employeesPractical floor for acquisition financing9.2%8.6%+0.6%

What acquirers look at

Structural volume decline since 2020 remote work, and solvent contamination is a genuine environmental liability on any site with historic PERC use.

Cities in Riverside

The figures above cover the county as a whole. These are the places within it.

Other industries in Riverside

Sources

  1. U.S. Census Bureau, 2023 County Business Patterns. Establishment counts, employment and annual payroll by NAICS. Retrieved 2026-09-08.
  2. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (2026Q1). Quarterly establishment counts and employment for employers covered by unemployment insurance. Retrieved 2026-09-08.