NAICS 238330 · California overview

Flooring Contractors in Santa Barbara County

Santa Barbara County had 31 Flooring establishments in 2023, ranking 17 of 38 California counties and accounting for 1.4% of the statewide total.

Establishments (2023)
31
Rank 17 of 38 counties
Employees
133
Mid-March employment
Annual payroll
$6.9M
All establishments
Per 10k residents
0.7
442,065 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
33
2026Q1
Employment
118
Quarter-end level
Average weekly wage
$995
Per covered worker
Quarterly trend
+3.1%
2025Q2 to 2026Q1
Concentration vs the national averageBLS, 2026Q1

1.14 location quotient. Flooring is about as concentrated in Santa Barbara 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 Flooring in Santa Barbara County. 3 of 31 establishments (10%) employ 10 or more people, the practical floor for most acquisition financing.

EmployeesEstablishmentsShareDistribution
1-41961.3%
5-9929.0%
10-1939.7%

Establishment trend

Year-over-year establishment counts, County Business Patterns. Net growth of 0.0% since 2020.

YearEstablishmentsChange
202031n/a
202128-3
2022280
202331+3

How this market compares

Santa Barbara 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 average0.7 per 10,000 residents, against a state median of 0.6

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

Vs state median
+18%
Businesses per resident
Rank by count
#17
of 38 counties
Rank by density
#14
of 38 ranked
Since 2020
0%
Change in establishments

Density compares flooring contractors provision per resident. It does not measure revenue, profitability or whether a market is worth entering.

Business size mix

Santa Barbara is more consolidated than California as a whole: fewer micro-operators and a larger share of businesses with real headcount. Fewer targets, but the ones that exist are more likely to be financeable.

Share of establishmentsSanta BarbaraCaliforniaDifference
Under 5 employeesOwner-operated, often no management layer61.3%69.9%-8.7%
5 to 49 employeesThe range most individual buyers target38.7%27.4%+11.4%
10 or more employeesPractical floor for acquisition financing9.7%11.4%-1.7%

What acquirers look at

Cyclical and tied to housing turnover. Commercial and property-management relationships are what make one of these worth buying.

Cities in Santa Barbara

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

Other industries in Santa Barbara

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.