Roofing Contractors (United States) — NAICS 23816

A short rollup primer for a general investing audience. This is a summary page: the level below it, NAICS 238160, holds the full detail. Figures marked as reported are historical facts from the cited sources; statements about where the industry is heading are forward-looking judgments.

1. Overview

NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) code 23816 is the "industry" level for Roofing Contractors — the businesses that install, repair, and replace the roofs on America's homes, stores, warehouses, schools, and factories. In the federal classification system, this five-digit code sits one rung above the six-digit code where the detail lives. Because roofing has only one detailed industry beneath it, 23816 and its single child, 238160, describe exactly the same set of businesses — the same ~24,000 firms, the same ~$70 billion of revenue.

If you want the full story — value chain, tickers, unit economics, deal history, and risks — read the 238160 primer. This page exists to state what the rolled-up level covers, give its own ground-truth federal figures, and hand you off.

Three things are worth carrying into the detailed page. First, roofing is large and recurring: roughly 80% of demand is re-roofing, repair, and maintenance of existing buildings rather than roofs on new construction, which makes it far steadier than most of the construction economy.[9] Second, it is extraordinarily fragmented: the four largest firms hold just 4.4% of industry revenue.[2] Third, the clean public ways to invest are indirect — the contractors themselves are almost entirely private, and listed exposure runs through the materials makers and distributors that sit outside this code.

2. What's inside — and why the level equals its one child

NAICS uses nested codes: a two-digit sector splits into three-digit subsectors, then four-digit industry groups, then five-digit industries, then six-digit national industries. Code 23816 is a five-digit industry. Underneath it, NAICS defines exactly one six-digit national industry:

When a five-digit industry has a single six-digit child, the two levels are definitionally the same population of businesses; the extra digit adds no further breakdown. So every scope rule for 238160 is the scope rule for 23816: it covers establishments primarily engaged in roofing work — installing and repairing roofs, spraying/coating/treating roofs, and installing skylights — and it excludes the mills that make shingles and coatings (manufacturing codes), the yards that wholesale them (423330), roof trusses and sheathing (238130 Framing), gutters and siding (238170 Siding), and rooftop solar-panel installation (238210 Electrical), even when the panels sit on a roof.[5] For the residential-vs-commercial split, ownership mix, and the full exclusion map, see §2 of the 238160 primer.

3. How big it is

These are our federal ground-truth figures for NAICS 23816, which — being a single-child level — are the same as 238160's. The vintages and universes differ, so they should not be combined into one precise market-size calculation:

About $70 billion of contractor revenue is spread across 24,000-plus firms, and the 50 largest together account for only 14.2% of receipts — among the lowest concentration ratios in the construction economy. (A concentration ratio, or CR, is the share of industry revenue held by the largest N firms.) The Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI, a standard market-concentration measure) was suppressed by the Census Bureau, itself a signal of how dispersed the field is.

Undercount caveat — read this before trusting any headline count. County Business Patterns and the Economic Census count employer establishments — businesses with payroll — and exclude the self-employed, no-payroll sole proprietors, day-labor crews, and cash operators.[6] Roofing is unusually skewed toward the smallest operators, so this matters here: third-party sources that fold in non-employers count on the order of ~96,000 roofing businesses versus the ~24,000 employer firms in the federal data.[7] Official receipts and employment are best read as a floor on true industry activity; private-market estimates of the broader roofing-services market run higher (some near $90 billion for 2025).[9] The 238160 primer discusses this gap in full.

4. The investable universe

Because 23816 has a single child, all of the value concentration is the child's, and there are no "other children" among which value is distributed — the whole population is roofing contractors. The important point for investors is that there is no large, pure, publicly traded U.S. roofing contractor today. Listed exposure sits upstream (materials) or adjacent (distribution, diversified property services), all of which are classified outside this code:

• Manufacturers — Owens Corning (OC), Carlisle (CSL), Amrize (AMRZ), Saint-Gobain (SGO, owner of CertainTeed), RPM International (RPM).[16][17][21]
• Distributors — QXO (QXO) and Home Depot (HD, owner of the SRS/GMS pro-roofing arm).[12][13]
• Contractor-adjacent — FirstService (FSV, owner of Roofing Corp of America) and Installed Building Products (IBP, thin roofing exposure inside an insulation business).[22]
• Private / private-equity-owned — where the actual contractors live — Tecta America (the #1 U.S. contractor), CentiMark, Baker Roofing, the Flynn Group, and a fast-growing set of PE roll-up platforms.[11][7]

The full company-by-company table, tickers, scale figures, and 2024–2026 deal history are in §4 of the 238160 primer.

5. How the money works

Contractors monetize labor, relationships, estimating, and execution — not products. The unit of production is a "square" (100 square feet of finished roof), and profit is driven by volume × margin per job: keeping crews utilized, buying materials well, and spreading fixed overhead across enough jobs.[21] A large share of residential re-roofing is paid by homeowners' insurance after storm or hail damage, so carrier claim behavior is a direct revenue driver.[22] Commercial work — flat-roof single-ply membrane systems on warehouses, schools, and plants — is a bigger, more maintenance-heavy business with heavier working-capital demands. The materials and distribution tiers that public investors can actually buy earn on product volume, pricing, and branch density instead. See §5 of the 238160 primer for unit economics and margins.

6. What drives demand

The base load is the replacement cycle — asphalt roofs last ~15–25 years, so aging roofs need replacing regardless of the economy (~80% of demand).[9] The swing factor is storms and hail, which drive insurance-funded replacements; U.S. insurers paid over $31 billion in wind/hail residential roof claims in 2024.[22] New construction adds the remaining ~20% and is the interest-rate-sensitive part.[9] Housing turnover, energy-efficiency and resilience codes, and rooftop-solar retrofits round out the drivers. Full detail in §6 of 238160.

7. Regulation

There is no federal roofing license; state licensing is a patchwork (about 27 states require a license, ~19 a roofing-specific exam).[17] Worker safety is governed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), whose fall-protection rule (29 CFR — Code of Federal Regulations — 1926.501) generally triggers at 6 feet.[18] Building and energy codes (the International Residential Code and International Building Code), the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Lead Renovation, Repair and Painting rule for pre-1978 buildings, immigration/E-Verify enforcement, and state storm-chasing and insurance rules round out the regime.[19][20] See §7 of 238160.

8. Consolidation

Roofing is a textbook fragmented, local trade (top-4 revenue share of just 4.4%), and two consolidation waves are running at once.[2] Distribution has gone national and largely public (ABC Supply, QXO/Beacon, Home Depot/SRS+GMS).[11][12][13] Contracting is being rolled up bottom-up by private equity: PE-backed platforms grew from ~17 in early 2023 to ~56 by end-2024, with buyout multiples around 6–9× EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization).[11] The 238160 primer covers the roll-up thesis and its risks in full (§8).

9. Risks

The headline risks carry over unchanged from the child level: weather variance cuts both ways; insurance tightening (higher deductibles, roof-age rules, carrier exits) can throttle claim-funded work; labor supply and safety (a chronic worker shortage, heavy reliance on immigrant labor, and fall hazards); material-cost and tariff inflation (asphalt tracks crude-oil prices); cyclicality in the new-construction slice; execution and warranty liability; and roll-up execution and working-capital strain for PE platforms.[22][16][18][11] A structural data risk also applies: employer-only federal statistics understate the number of very small and nonemployer businesses (§3). Full discussion in §9 of 238160.

10. How to invest, and the outlook

Because this level equals its one child, the investing playbook is identical to 238160's. Public routes are indirect: materials makers (Owens Corning, Carlisle, Amrize) are the cleanest listed proxies, distribution is reachable through QXO and Home Depot, and there is effectively no pure public contractor to buy.[12][13][16][17] Private routes are where the contractors themselves are owned — direct ownership, roll-ups, private credit, and franchise models — underwritten on repeat/maintenance revenue, owner dependence, crew structure, insurance-claim exposure, and receivables/retainage.[11]

Near-term outlook (forward-looking). Durable but uneven: an aging roof stock and a heavily non-discretionary re-roof/maintenance mix make demand comparatively defensive, and consolidation across both distribution and contracting looks set to continue. The variables to watch are the swing factors, not the base load — storm-season severity, whether insurers keep tightening roof coverage (a genuine headwind into 2026), immigration/labor availability, and material-cost/tariff pressure. For the complete analysis, go to the 238160 primer — this page is only the rolled-up summary.

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Sources

Drawn from the 238160 child primer; numbering preserved for cross-reference.

1. U.S. Census Bureau — County Business Patterns, NAICS 238160 (2023). https://www.census.gov/data/datasets/2023/econ/cbp/2023-cbp.html
2. U.S. Census Bureau — 2022 Economic Census, Establishment and Firm Size / Concentration of Largest Firms, NAICS 238160 (2022). https://api.census.gov/data/2022/ecnsize.html
3. U.S. Census Bureau — 2022 NAICS Manual, and NAICS.com definition/cross-references for 238160 (excludes 238130, 238170, 238210, 324122). https://www.census.gov/naics/reference_files_tools/2022_NAICS_Manual.pdf; https://www.naics.com/naics-code-description/?code=238160
4. U.S. Census Bureau — County Business Patterns methodology (employer-only coverage). https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp/technical-documentation/methodology.html
5. IBISWorld — "Roofing Contractors in the US: Number of Businesses" (~96,000 including non-employers, 2023). https://www.ibisworld.com/united-states/number-of-businesses/roofing-contractors/198/
6. Finturf / market-research summaries — "Roofing Industry Trends & Stats 2025" (re-roof ~80% of demand; broader services-market size). https://finturf.com/blog/roofing-industry/
7. Roofing Contractor (BNP Media) / AXIA Advisors / CT Acquisitions — "Private Equity Outlook" and roll-up trackers (platform cadence, platform counts, EBITDA multiples) (2025). https://www.roofingcontractor.com/articles/100478-roofings-big-deal-what-contractors-need-to-know-about-private-equity-in-2025
8. QXO Investor Relations / LBM Journal — "QXO Completes Acquisition of Beacon Roofing Supply" (~$11B, April 2025). https://investors.qxo.com/news/news-details/2025/QXO-Completes-Acquisition-of-Beacon-Roofing-Supply/default.aspx
9. The Home Depot / Roofing Contractor — SRS Distribution ($18.3B, 2024) and GMS ($5.5B, completed September 2025) acquisitions. https://ir.homedepot.com/news-releases/2024/06-18-2024-153031934
10. GMInsights / Yahoo Finance / Mordor Intelligence — U.S. asphalt-shingle market shares; Owens Corning and Carlisle roofing-segment revenue (2024). https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/asphalt-shingles-market
11. Holcim / Roofing Contractor — "Holcim Completes Spin-off of North America Business" (Amrize, NYSE/SIX: AMRZ; June 2025; #2 U.S. commercial roofing provider). https://www.holcim.com/media/media-releases/holcim-completes-spin-off-of-north-america-business
12. Owens Corning — 2025 results and Roofing segment / 10-K (oxidized asphalt input; asphalt cost correlates with crude oil). https://investor.owenscorning.com/
13. RPM International — 2025 Form 10-K; Tremco roofing systems, coatings, and roofing services. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/110621/000095017025098313/rpm-20250531.htm
14. FirstService Corporation — "FirstService Acquires Roofing Corp of America" (2023). https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2023/12/18/2797737/36351/en/firstservice-acquires-roofing-corp-of-america.html
15. Roofing Contractor — Top 100/150 Roofing Contractors ranking (Tecta America #1, ~$1.4B revenue) (2024–2025). https://www.roofingcontractor.com/articles/101115-the-top-10-roofing-contractors-of-2025
16. NAHB / Home Builders Institute / Roofing Contractor — immigrant share of the roofing workforce (~half); ~75,000 undocumented roofing workers (2025). https://www.nahb.org/advocacy/industry-issues/labor-and-employment/immigration-reform-is-key-to-building-a-skilled-workforce/concentration-of-immigration-in-construction-trades
17. NEXT Insurance / RoofVista / Fixr — roofing contractor licensing requirements by state (~27 states require a license; ~19 a roofing-specific exam) (2026). https://roofvista.com/resources/guides/roofing-contractor-licensing-by-state
18. Occupational Safety and Health Administration — Fall protection, 29 CFR 1926.501 (6-foot trigger); residential fall-protection guidance. https://www.osha.gov/residential-fall-protection
19. International Code Council — 2024 International Residential Code / International Building Code: Roof Assemblies. https://codes.iccsafe.org/content/IRC2024V2.0/chapter-9-roof-assemblies
20. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — Lead Renovation, Repair and Painting (RRP) Program: Contractors. https://www.epa.gov/lead/renovation-repair-and-painting-program-contractors
21. Roofr / ServiceTitan / RoofingCalculator — roofing profit margins, cost structure, residential replacement cost, and the "square" unit (2024–2026). https://roofr.com/blog/how-profitable-is-the-average-roofing-business
22. TAMKO / Bill Ragan Roofing / industry reporting — hail and storm exposure and insurance claim behavior (>$31B in 2024 wind/hail residential claims) (2024–2026). https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260302130332/en/TAMKO-Introduces-HailGuard-Shingles-The-Industrys-First-and-Only-Asphalt-Shingle-with-an-Extended-Hail-Warranty