NAICS 561720 · California overview

Janitorial & Commercial Cleaning Services in Santa Clara County

Santa Clara County had 418 Commercial Cleaning establishments in 2023, ranking 5 of 48 California counties and accounting for 6.0% of the statewide total.

Establishments (2023)
418
Rank 5 of 48 counties
Employees
8,794
Mid-March employment
Annual payroll
$355M
All establishments
Per 10k residents
2.2
1,914,391 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
539
2026Q1
Employment
9,769
Quarter-end level
Average weekly wage
$875
Per covered worker
Quarterly trend
+4.1%
2025Q2 to 2026Q1
Concentration vs the national averageBLS, 2026Q1

1.27 location quotient. Commercial Cleaning employment in Santa Clara County is about 1.3 times more concentrated than in the United States as a whole.

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 Santa Clara County. 116 of 418 establishments (28%) employ 10 or more people, the practical floor for most acquisition financing.

EmployeesEstablishmentsShareDistribution
1-422152.9%
5-98119.4%
10-19419.8%
20-49419.8%
50-99143.3%
100-249133.1%
250-49941.0%
500-99930.7%

Establishment trend

Year-over-year establishment counts, County Business Patterns. Net growth of 8.3% since 2020.

YearEstablishmentsChange
2020386n/a
2021401+15
2022399-2
2023418+19

How this market compares

Santa Clara 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
+30%
Businesses per resident
Rank by count
#5
of 48 counties
Rank by density
#15
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

Santa Clara 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 ClaraCaliforniaDifference
Under 5 employeesOwner-operated, often no management layer52.9%60.7%-7.9%
5 to 49 employeesThe range most individual buyers target39.0%33.7%+5.3%
10 or more employeesPractical floor for acquisition financing27.8%21.9%+5.8%

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 Santa Clara

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

Other industries in Santa Clara

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.