Short answer: The U.S. had 8,547 barber shops in 2025, up 4.2% from a year earlier, with 35,340 employees at about 4.1 per shop. A growing category with steady daily bookings creates fresh business records every day, which can make shop data valuable.
What the 2025 numbers say
The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts nearly every employer in the country through unemployment-insurance filings. Its 2025 annual averages show 8,547 barber shop locations, up 4.2% from 2024, with employment up 1.6% to 35,340 and average annual pay of $39,421.
Shops grew faster than jobs, so the average shop is a little smaller: about 4.1 employees per location. That fits what you see on the street, where small owner-run shops with a handful of chairs keep opening.
State-by-state counts, pay and one-year change are in our barber shop data atlas.
Where barber shops are growing
Texas has the most barber shop jobs at 5,183 across 767 shops. California has 2,601 jobs at 726 shops, and Florida and New York each have 2,021 jobs, at 884 and 1,002 shops.
Among states with at least 500 barber shop jobs, the fastest one-year job growth was Tennessee at +10.9%, then Arizona at +8.3% and Missouri at +6.3%. These are public federal figures, not forecasts.
Compare with the beauty salon atlas and the nail salon atlas.
Why a busy chair makes good data
Data buyers look at three things first: depth, size and freshness. Depth is how many years of history you have. Size is how many records sit in your systems. Freshness is whether new records keep arriving every day.
Barber shops are strong on freshness. Every appointment, walk-in and product sale is a timestamped record, and a shop with several chairs creates dozens a day without any extra work. Years of booking history also show clear patterns by weekday, season and service type.
That history sits in booking software and point-of-sale systems, and most owners have never looked at it as an asset.
What kinds of barber shop records can be valuable
Every shop is different, and nothing here is an eligibility list. Examples of business records that can interest buyers, shared only in totals and patterns:
- Appointment and scheduling patterns: busiest days, booking lead times and no-show rates in aggregate.
- Service mix: cuts, shaves, color and add-ons over time.
- Retail and product sales: what sells and when.
- Staffing and chair utilization: how busy each chair is across a week.
Client names, phone numbers, photos and anything personal are never requested or licensed. Queen Data works with business data only.
How to find out what yours is worth
Start with the basics: how long you've been open, how many chairs or stylists you have, which booking software you use and how far back the records go. Shops that have used the same booking system for two or more years usually have the most to work with today.
Try the data value calculator for a quick ballpark, read how it works, or text Lexi. There's no upload, no cost and no commitment, and nothing is ever licensed without your signed agreement.
