NAICS 811192 · California overview

Car Washes in Yolo County

Yolo County had 11 Car Wash establishments in 2023, ranking 28 of 42 California counties and accounting for 0.5% of the statewide total.

Establishments (2023)
11
Rank 28 of 42 counties
Employees
105
Mid-March employment
Annual payroll
$2.8M
All establishments
Per 10k residents
0.5
224,410 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
14
2026Q1
Employment
96
Quarter-end level
Average weekly wage
$469
Per covered worker
Quarterly trend
0.0%
2025Q2 to 2026Q1
Concentration vs the national averageBLS, 2026Q1

0.72 location quotient. Car Wash employment in Yolo County is about 1.4 times less 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 Car Wash in Yolo County. 4 of 11 establishments (36%) employ 10 or more people, the practical floor for most acquisition financing.

EmployeesEstablishmentsShareDistribution
1-4545.5%
10-19436.4%

Establishment trend

Year-over-year establishment counts, County Business Patterns. Net growth of 57.1% since 2020.

YearEstablishmentsChange
20207n/a
20218+1
202210+2
202311+1

How this market compares

Yolo 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.

Typical0.5 per 10,000 residents, against a state median of 0.6

Close to the state median for this industry. Provision is roughly what the population would predict.

Vs state median
-13%
Businesses per resident
Rank by count
#28
of 42 counties
Rank by density
#30
of 42 ranked
Since 2020
+57%
Change in establishments

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

Business size mix

Yolo tracks the California size distribution closely.

Share of establishmentsYoloCaliforniaDifference
Under 5 employeesOwner-operated, often no management layer45.5%46.8%-1.4%
5 to 49 employeesThe range most individual buyers target36.4%48.7%-12.3%
10 or more employeesPractical floor for acquisition financing36.4%35.2%+1.2%

What acquirers look at

Subscription membership models converted this from a cash business into an institutional asset class. Expect real-estate-driven pricing rather than earnings multiples.

Cities in Yolo

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

Other industries in Yolo

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.