Landscaping Services (United States) — Industry-Group Rollup Primer

NAICS 2022 code 56173. NAICS is the North American Industry Classification System, the standard the U.S. government uses to group businesses.[1] This page covers the five-digit "NAICS industry" level; for full detail, see the leaf primer for its one child, 561730.

1. Overview

NAICS industry 56173, Landscaping Services, is the business of installing and maintaining outdoor greenery and hardscape: mowing and fertilizing lawns, planting and pruning trees and shrubs, laying sod, building walkways and retaining walls, running irrigation, and — seasonally — plowing snow.[1] It is one of the most fragmented service industries in the U.S. economy: the largest four firms together hold just 7.4% of receipts, and even the top fifty hold only 15.5%.[3]

At this five-digit level, 56173 is effectively identical to its single six-digit child, 561730 (also named Landscaping Services). Everything the reader needs — structure, size, the investable universe, unit economics, demand drivers, regulation, consolidation, risks, and how to invest — is covered in depth in the 561730 leaf primer. This page is a short pass-through: it confirms the level equals its one child, states this level's own federal figures, and points to 561730 for the rest.[1]

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

The federal classification tree places exactly one six-digit industry under 56173:[1]

Because there is only one child, the five-digit "NAICS industry" and the six-digit "national industry" describe the same set of businesses. The Census Bureau publishes the same receipts, firm counts, and concentration ratios at both levels; there is no aggregation of distinct sub-industries happening here. The five-digit code exists to keep the NAICS hierarchy consistent, not because it bundles more than one activity.

For scope boundaries — what counts as landscaping versus adjacent codes such as 541320 (landscape architecture / design only), 111421 (nursery/tree growing), 444240 (garden-center retail), 238910 (site preparation), and 561790 (stand-alone snow plowing) — see Section 2 of the 561730 primer.[1][6]

3. Size (this level's rollup figures)

Federal statistics for the employer portion of 56173 (businesses with paid staff). These are this level's own ground-truth figures, and — because the level equals its one child — they are identical to 561730's:

That is roughly $1.0 million in average revenue and about seven employees per firm — a tiny-business industry by any measure.[2][3] The much lower first-quarter payroll ($8.0 billion) versus full-year ($41.2 billion) is a fingerprint of seasonality: winter is the slow quarter across most of the country.[2]

Undercount caveat — a big one here. The figures above count only employer businesses. Landscaping has an enormous informal, self-employed tail those numbers miss. Our core federal extract for 56173 contains no nonemployer figure, so none is used above. Separately, the Census Bureau's Nonemployer Statistics program reported roughly 434,554 one-person, no-payroll landscaping businesses in 2023, generating about $15.3 billion in additional receipts.[5] Add them and the true business count is well over half a million and the working population above 1.2 million once self-employed owners are counted alongside the ~803,000 payroll workers.[2][5] Because individual and very-small ownership dominates this industry, the employer-only figures materially understate its true footprint. For core facts this primer uses the Census figures; treat broader private market-research estimates (which fold in nonemployer and adjacent activity, and put the whole U.S. market near $186–189 billion) as scope-dependent.[7]

4. Investable universe (where value concentrates)

Because 56173 has only one child, value concentrates exactly as it does in 561730: overwhelmingly in private hands, with thin public exposure.

• Public markets: essentially one listed pure-play operator, BrightView Holdings (NYSE: BV; ~$2.68B FY2025 revenue), plus adjacent "picks-and-shovels" names — supply distributor SiteOne (NYSE: SITE), equipment makers Toro (NYSE: TTC) and Deere (NYSE: DE), and consumer-products maker Scotts Miracle-Gro (NYSE: SMG). Direct stock-market exposure is narrow.[8][11][12][13]
• Private markets: a nearly unlimited supply of small, ownership-transferable businesses, plus large private operators (Davey Tree, TruGreen, Yellowstone, HeartLand, LandCare, Ruppert, SavATree, Mariani, Perennial) and 90-plus private-equity-backed roll-up platforms.[14][15][17]

For the full company-by-company tables, see Section 4 of the 561730 primer.

5. How the money works

Landscaping is a labor-driven, route-based service business. The economics are the same at this level as in the leaf:

• Recurring maintenance contracts are the prize — weekly or monthly mowing and grounds care behave like an annuity, and buyers pay far more for contracted recurring revenue than for one-off project work.
• Route density is the key margin lever — clustering customers cuts "windshield time" (crews driving between distant jobs), lifting billable stops per crew-day.
• Enhancement, development, and snow work add higher-ticket but lumpier revenue, more tied to the construction cycle and the weather year.[8]
• Labor is the core cost and constraint — a low-single-digit net margin at national scale reflects how labor-heavy the model is.[8]

Well-run maintenance operators are estimated to earn roughly 14–22% EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization — a proxy for operating cash profit), and businesses change hands anywhere from ~3–4.5× SDE (seller's discretionary earnings) for small residential shops to 8–10.5× EBITDA for contract-heavy national platforms.[15] See Section 5 of 561730 for the full breakdown.

6. Demand drivers

Demand at this level tracks the leaf exactly: commercial and institutional property upkeep (offices, retail, hospitals, schools, HOAs, campuses, municipalities — the fastest-growing segment); residential spending and housing activity (roughly half to sixty percent of the market, boosted by outsourcing of yard work); construction and redevelopment (the more cyclical design-build work); weather (rain grows grass, snow drives winter revenue); and water policy and drought — a two-sided driver that reduces long-run mowing demand in the arid West while creating one-time xeriscaping conversion work.[7][8][22] Recurring commercial maintenance is more resilient than residential discretionary or one-off development.

7. Regulation

Landscaping is lightly regulated as a business but touches several specific regimes, fragmented across federal, state, and local authorities. The most consequential: the industry is the single largest user of the federal H-2B temporary non-agricultural worker visa (capped at 66,000/year against demand well above 200,000), so labor supply is a genuine policy risk.[17][18] Others include pesticide/fertilizer application licensing under FIFRA (the federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act) and state rules;[20] equipment electrification (California's AB 1346 gas-engine sales ban and local gas leaf-blower bans);[19] and worker safety under OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Administration).[21] Full detail is in Section 7 of 561730.

8. Consolidation

By the numbers this is about as fragmented as U.S. industries get: the largest four firms hold 7.4% of receipts, the top eight 9.6%, the top twenty 12.5%, the top fifty 15.5%, and the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI, a standard concentration gauge that runs to 10,000) is a minuscule 18.1.[3] That gap between fragmented supply and scale advantages at the top is fueling an aggressive private-equity roll-up wave — advisers track 90-plus PE-backed platforms buying recurring-revenue local operators, densifying their routes, and re-rating the combined businesses at 8–10× EBITDA.[14][15][11] See Section 8 of 561730 for the deal-by-deal detail.

9. Risks

The risk profile is that of the single child: labor availability and cost (H-2B and immigration exposure); weather and seasonality; cyclicality on the project/development side; low switching costs on easily-rebid maintenance contracts; input and equipment costs (fuel, chemicals, and the forced shift to battery equipment in regulating states); safety and liability; and roll-up execution and leverage risk at the more-indebted consolidators.[8] Long-run water conservation could permanently shrink lawn-maintenance demand in the arid West.[22]

10. How to invest & outlook

Because 56173 is identical to 561730, the investment approach is the same. Public routes are limited — BrightView (BV) is the only listed U.S. pure-play, with SiteOne (SITE), Toro (TTC), Deere (DE), and Scotts (SMG) as indirect equipment/supply angles.[8][11][12][13] Private routes are where most of the value sits — investing alongside PE consolidators, backing an independent sponsor or search fund, buying a local operator outright, providing private credit to leveraged platforms, or buying into a franchise system. Commercial, contract-heavy, route-dense operators command the best valuations.

Outlook: steady mid-single-digit growth supported by recurring maintenance and continued outsourcing, with consolidation likely to persist as long as the multiple gap between small operators and scaled platforms holds. The two swing variables are labor/immigration policy (H-2B supply) and equipment electrification (a capital cost favoring larger operators).[17][19] For public investors the opportunity set stays narrow; for private investors this remains one of the more attractive small-business consolidation stories in the U.S. economy.

For full detail on every section above, see the leaf primer for NAICS 561730 — Landscaping Services, of which this five-digit level is a 1:1 pass-through.

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Sources

1. U.S. Census Bureau, NAICS 2022 — 561730 Landscaping Services (industry definition, scope, and single-child structure of 56173). https://www.census.gov/naics/?details=561730&input=561730&year=2022
2. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023 (NAICS 561730 — establishments, paid employees, annual and first-quarter payroll). https://data.census.gov/table/CBP2023.CB2300CBP
3. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census — Concentration of Largest Firms (NAICS 561730 — receipts, firms, CR4/CR8/CR20/CR50, HHI). https://data.census.gov/table/ECNSIZE2022.EC2200SIZECONCEN
4. U.S. Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics 2023 / gig-economy analysis (NAICS 561730 nonemployer establishments and receipts), 2025. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2025/07/nes-gig-economy.html
5. U.S. Census Bureau, NAICS 2022 — 561790 Other Services to Buildings and Dwellings (stand-alone snow plowing). https://www.census.gov/naics/?details=561790&input=561790&year=2022
6. IBISWorld / Grand View Research / Mordor Intelligence, U.S. Landscaping Services Market Size & Split (~$186–189B; residential vs. commercial), 2025. https://www.ibisworld.com/united-states/number-of-businesses/landscaping-services/1497/
7. BrightView Holdings, Inc., Form 10-K, fiscal year ended September 30, 2025 (segment revenue, snow, adjusted EBITDA, net income). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1734713/000119312525288109/bv-20250930.htm
8. SiteOne Landscape Supply, Inc., Form 10-K, fiscal year ended December 28, 2025 (net sales; largest U.S. wholesale landscape-supply distributor). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1650729/000165072926000005/site-20251228.htm
9. The Toro Company, 2025 Annual Report. https://www.thetorocompany.com/investors
10. The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company, Form 10-K, fiscal year ended September 30, 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/825542/000082554225000022/smg-20250930.htm
11. Landscape Management, 2024 LM150 and Record deal activity in landscaping (90+ PE platforms; Davey Tree; BrightView LM150 #1), 2024–2025. https://www.landscapemanagement.net/2024-lm150-onward-and-upward/
12. Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, TruGreen portfolio profile (majority ownership; ~$1.5B revenue; 2.3M+ customers). https://www.cdr.com/portfolio/trugreen
13. Harvest Partners, Yellowstone Landscape Announces Minority Investment from Neuberger Berman Capital Solutions, 2024. https://harvestpartners.com/news/yellowstone-landscape-announces-minority-investment-from-neuberger-berman-capital-solutions/
14. Hyde Park Capital / Landscape Management, Landscaping Services M&A and private-equity roll-up activity, 2025. https://www.hydeparkcapital.com/insights/industry-reports/landscaping-services-market-insights-fall-2025/
15. First Page Sage / CT Acquisitions, EBITDA Multiples and Margins for Landscaping Companies, 2025–2026. https://firstpagesage.com/business/ebitda-multiples-for-landscaping-companies/
16. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook — Grounds Maintenance Workers (median annual wage ~$37,370 in 2024) and OEWS, May 2023 — NAICS 561730. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/building-and-grounds-cleaning/grounds-maintenance-workers.htm
17. American Immigration Council / USCIS, The H-2B Program and FY2025 supplemental H-2B visas (landscaping = largest user; 66,000 cap), 2024–2025. https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/news-releases/dhs-dol-make-nearly-65000-additional-h-2b-visas-available-for-fiscal-year-2025
18. U.S. Department of Labor, H-2B Temporary Non-agricultural Program (wage, recruitment, worker-protection requirements). https://www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/foreign-labor/programs/h-2b
19. California Assembly Bill 1346 (small off-road engine sales ban, effective 2024) and municipal gas leaf-blower use bans, 2023–2025. https://californialocal.com/localnews/statewide/ca/article/show/1612-leaf-blower-ban-explained/
20. U.S. EPA, Certification of Pesticide Applicators (FIFRA; 40 CFR Part 171). https://www.epa.gov/pesticide-worker-safety/how-get-certified-pesticide-applicator
21. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Landscape and Horticultural Services: Hazards and Solutions. https://www.osha.gov/landscaping/hazards
22. SoCal Water$mart / regional water agencies, Turf Replacement ("cash-for-grass") rebate programs, 2025. https://socalwatersmart.com/en/residential/rebates/available-rebates/turf-replacement-program/rebate-eligibility-requirements/