Lawn Care and Landscaping Statistics · May 2026
America's $188.8 Billion
Lawn
28 data points that explain the country's most overlooked industry — the workforce, the chemicals, the bees, the bans, and the Wall Street rollup nobody has told you about.
The Lawn Care and Landscaping Industry by the Numbers
A fragmented giant hiding in plain sight.
Revenue, firm counts, and employment — the headline figures behind America's lawn-care economy.
$188.8 Billion
U.S. landscaping services industry revenue, 2025 (+5.8% YoY).
The industry's top-line revenue figure for landscaping services nationwide.
Source: IBISWorld
~635,000
Lawn-care businesses in the U.S. (Census 2023, NAICS 561730 only).
117,969 employer companies plus ~517,000 sole-proprietor firms. No company controls more than ~5% of the market. IBISWorld and NALP cite ~693,000 — higher counts that reflect a broader industry scope, including additional NAICS codes.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau (CBP 2023)
~2/business
Workers per business — blended average across the industry.
802,899 paid employees plus ~517,000 self-employed sole-proprietor owners = ~1.32 million people working across ~635,000 firms (Census 2023 CBP + Nonemployer Statistics).
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
~1.3 Million
Grounds-maintenance workers in the U.S.
Broader Occupational Outlook Handbook grouping (includes landscapers, tree trimmers, pesticide handlers); 2024 employment per BLS. Exceeds the 952,640 SOC 37-3011 figure because that code is one sub-occupation within the OOH grounds-maintenance group.
Source: BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook
4%
Projected employment growth in the field, 2024–2034.
About 171,600 job openings per year projected over the decade — steady demand for grounds-maintenance labor.
Source: BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook
Who Works in Lawn Care
The people behind the perfect lawn.
Wages, demographics, and visa patterns — who actually does this work, and what they earn.
$42,290
Mean annual wage for landscaping and groundskeeping workers.
BLS OEWS, May 2025, SOC 37-3011 — up from $40,880 in May 2024.
Source: BLS OEWS (May 2025)
$18.82/hour
Median hourly wage for landscaping and groundskeeping workers.
BLS OEWS, May 2025, SOC 37-3011. Mean hourly wage is $20.33.
Source: BLS OEWS (May 2025)
~92.7%
Share of the landscaping & groundskeeping workforce that is male.
One of the most male-dominated occupations in the U.S. labor force.
Source: Data USA
31.3%
Share of all H-2B seasonal-worker visa certifications going to landscaping services.
NAICS 561730, 2024. No other industry came close to this share of the H-2B program.
Source: American Immigration Council (2024)
39.1%
Share of all H-2B certifications for the landscaping-and-groundskeeping occupation.
SOC 37-3011, 2024 — the single most-requested occupation in the program (includes landscaping workers employed by any industry, e.g., hotels, golf courses).
Source: American Immigration Council (2024)
America's largest irrigated "crop"
40 Million
acres of lawn cover the U.S. (~163,800 km², per the peer-reviewed Milesi et al. 2005 study) — 3X the surface area of America's largest irrigated crop, corn.
The Hidden Costs
What your lawn is quietly burning through.
Behind every perfect green lawn is a stack of chemicals, gallons, and emissions Americans rarely add up. Here's the tab.
1,100mi
One hour of a commercial leaf blower = one car driving from L.A. to Denver.
In smog-forming emissions. One hour of a commercial mower equals about 300 miles of driving — which is why more than 200 laws and programs across 27 states plus D.C. now restrict or incentivize alternatives to gas-powered lawn equipment.
Source: California Air Resources Board · PIRG
90M+ lbs
Herbicides on U.S. lawns and gardens each year.
The largest pesticide-use category in the home-and-garden sector. Suburban lawns and gardens receive 3.2–9.8 lbs of pesticide per acre — versus 2.7 lbs per acre on agricultural land.
Source: Beyond Pesticides (EPA-derived data, 2005)
~8 Billion gallons a day
Goes outdoors.
Residential outdoor water use averages nearly 8 billion gallons every day nationwide — and outdoor use can account for up to 60% of household water in arid regions.
Source: EPA WaterSense
85,000
ER visits a year, just from lawn mowers.
The hand or finger is the most-commonly-injured body part (22.3% of cases). About 9,400 of those visits each year are children under 18.
Source: Harris et al., Am J Emerg Med, 2018 · CMSA
Pollinator Emergency
The lawn is winning. The bees are losing.
Turfgrass monoculture is one of the largest pollinator-habitat losses in U.S. history. The numbers are getting worse.
96%
Decline in abundance of four formerly common North American bumble-bee species (Cameron et al., PNAS 2011)
+
57%
Decline in western bumble-bee occurrence in its historical range, 1998–2020 (USGS)
+
>95%
Decline in western monarch butterflies since the 1980s (Xerces Society)
20 Million
Acres of U.S. lawn that Doug Tallamy wants converted to native plant habitat.
University of Delaware entomologist Doug Tallamy's "Homegrown National Park" initiative is calling for 20 million acres of habitat restoration on what's currently U.S. lawn — the equivalent of a new national park system grown one yard at a time.
Source: Homegrown National Park
12%
Of U.S. adults are already converting parts of their lawn to native or wildflower landscapes.
28% bought pollinator-friendly plants in 2024, and 17% bought native plants. A small but real shift.
Source: National Wildlife Federation, 2024 Garden for Wildlife Survey
The Electric Pivot
The gas mower is dying faster than you think.
Battery-powered walk-behinds, smart irrigation, and robot mowers are eating the market. Cities and states are paying people to switch.
39.3%
Gas mowers' share of the U.S. market in 2025.
Down from a long-time majority. Battery-cordless walk-behinds are now the dominant new-sale category.
Source: Mordor Intelligence
18.4%
Annual growth rate for robotic mowers, 2026–2031.
Global robotic-mower market is projected to climb from $9.33 billion in 2025 to $21.97 billion by 2033 (11.4% CAGR over 2026–2033). North America = 38.2% of revenue in 2025.
Source: Mordor Intelligence · Grand View Research
237 / 500
Of the largest U.S. cities have residents with access to rebates for electric lawn equipment.
Nearly half of the country's biggest cities have city-, state-, or utility-funded incentives on the table to nudge homeowners off gas.
Source: PIRG
Wall Street Moves In
Private equity is rolling up your local lawn-care guy.
Commercial landscaping was a quintessentially mom-and-pop industry. Then it became Wall Street's favorite consolidation target.
30+
Active PE platform investments in commercial landscaping
By late 2024, more than 30 private-equity-backed platforms were buying up regional lawn-care companies.
Source: Forbes Partners
131
Landscaping M&A deals, 2023–YTD 2025.
Roughly one consolidation deal every week, on average, since the start of 2023.
Source: CapIQ via Forbes Partners
89
Acquisitions completed by a single PE platform.
Apax Partners' landscaping platform alone has rolled up 89 companies — the most aggressive operator in the space.
Source: Grata PE Playbook
Who's Really In Charge? Homeowner associations
Millions of homeowners don't fully own their lawn.
Roughly 53% of American homeowners now live under an HOA. Lawn-appearance rules remain among the most-disputed policies.
40 Million
U.S. households live in an HOA-governed community.
That's about 53% of homeowners. Roughly one in three of all U.S. housing units sits in an HOA, condo, or co-op — and lawn-appearance rules are among the most frequently contested policies on the books.
Source: iPropertyManagement · Community Associations Institute
53%
Of American homeowners now live under an HOA.
Lawn-appearance rules remain among the most-disputed policies in these communities — shaping what millions of yards can and can't look like.
Source: iPropertyManagement · Community Associations Institute
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alice Onofrei
Alice Onofrei is Senior Research Manager at LawnStarter. She leads data collection and analysis for a wide range of statistical studies. Passionate about making research accessible and relevant and with a strong focus on accuracy and clarity, she helps turn complex data into meaningful insights.