NAICS 561720 · California overview

Janitorial & Commercial Cleaning Services in San Diego County

San Diego County had 710 Commercial Cleaning establishments in 2023, ranking 2 of 48 California counties and accounting for 10.2% of the statewide total.

Establishments (2023)
710
Rank 2 of 48 counties
Employees
10,718
Mid-March employment
Annual payroll
$386M
All establishments
Per 10k residents
2.2
3,282,248 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
781
2026Q1
Employment
11,195
Quarter-end level
Average weekly wage
$674
Per covered worker
Quarterly trend
+4.0%
2025Q2 to 2026Q1
Concentration vs the national averageBLS, 2026Q1

1.06 location quotient. Commercial Cleaning is about as concentrated in San Diego 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 Commercial Cleaning in San Diego County. 154 of 710 establishments (22%) employ 10 or more people, the practical floor for most acquisition financing.

EmployeesEstablishmentsShareDistribution
1-444462.5%
5-911015.5%
10-197110.0%
20-49486.8%
50-99142.0%
100-249152.1%
250-49960.8%

Establishment trend

Year-over-year establishment counts, County Business Patterns. Net growth of 8.4% since 2020.

YearEstablishmentsChange
2020655n/a
2021671+16
2022683+12
2023710+27

How this market compares

San Diego 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.

Above average2.2 per 10,000 residents, against a state median of 1.7

More provision than the typical California market of this size. Usually a sign of genuine local demand rather than oversupply.

Vs state median
+29%
Businesses per resident
Rank by count
#2
of 48 counties
Rank by density
#16
of 48 ranked
Since 2020
+8%
Change in establishments

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

Business size mix

San Diego tracks the California size distribution closely.

Share of establishmentsSan DiegoCaliforniaDifference
Under 5 employeesOwner-operated, often no management layer62.5%60.7%+1.8%
5 to 49 employeesThe range most individual buyers target32.3%33.7%-1.4%
10 or more employeesPractical floor for acquisition financing21.7%21.9%-0.2%

What acquirers look at

Low capital intensity and contractual revenue, offset by labor turnover and thin margins. Customer concentration is the single most common deal-killer in diligence.

Cities in San Diego

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

Other industries in San Diego

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.