Marinas (United States) — NAICS 71393

A rollup primer for public-market and private investors.

1. Overview

A marina is the parking lot of the water: a waterfront business that rents docking and storage space to recreational boat owners and typically sells them the fuel, service, and supplies they need to use their boats [1]. The core product is the slip — a rented berth, either "wet" (in the water) or "dry" (stored on land or racked in a warehouse) — and the core economic fact is that usable waterfront is finite. You cannot manufacture new coastline, and permitting a new marina is slow and expensive, so existing marinas behave like scarce, income-producing real estate with a service business bolted on top.

NAICS (the North American Industry Classification System) code 71393 is a five-digit NAICS industry. It sits one rung above the individual industry codes and one rung below the industry group 7139, "Other Amusement and Recreation Industries." This page is a rollup — it summarizes the level and points you to the full detail below.

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

A five-digit NAICS industry can hold several six-digit "national industries." Marinas holds exactly one:

Because 713930 is the only child, the five-digit industry 71393 is effectively identical to it: same definition, same establishments, same revenue, same firms. The extra digit exists only to keep the classification system consistent; it carves out no additional activity and merges in none. Everything true of 713930 is true of 71393. For the complete treatment — structure, ownership mix, valuation, regulation, consolidation, risks, and how to invest — read the child primer, 713930 Marinas. The sections below give this level's own ground-truth figures and a compressed synthesis; the child primer is the source of record.

3. Size (this level's figures)

Our federal figures — the ground truth for this primer — count employer businesses in NAICS 71393. Because the level equals its one child, these are the same figures reported for 713930:

Receipts are from 2022 while employment and payroll are from 2023, so these are not a single-year income statement.

Undercount caveat — it matters here. These counts understate the physical marina world. County Business Patterns covers only employer establishments with paid employees and an employer identification number; it excludes self-employed and nonemployer operations, and the Economic Census generally excludes government-operated facilities [4][5]. Roughly 30% of U.S. marinas are municipally, county, state, or harbor-district owned and land in public budgets, not this industry code [9]. Thousands of very small, owner-run docks have no payroll and fall outside the count entirely. That is why tallies of all U.S. marinas run far higher — commonly cited industry figures of roughly 9,300 to 10,500 facilities [8] versus the 3,739 employer establishments above. Read the federal numbers as the taxable private-employer core, not the whole harbor.

4. Investable universe (where value concentrates)

With a single child, all of the industry's investable value sits in that one pool — there is no "which sub-industry" question at this level. And within it, value is remarkably unconcentrated: the four largest firms hold just 6.9% of revenue (CR4), the top 50 hold 23.1% (CR50), and the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) — a standard concentration measure running from near 0 (perfectly fragmented) to 10,000 (a monopoly) — is only 20 [3]. U.S. antitrust regulators consider a market "unconcentrated" below 1,500; marinas are about as fragmented as any industry gets.

There is no pure-play, U.S.-listed marina company. Public-market investors reach the theme only indirectly — through a boat retailer that also operates marinas (MarineMax, NYSE: HZO), the private-equity manager that owns the largest platform (Blackstone, NYSE: BX, which bought Safe Harbor Marinas for $5.65 billion in 2025), adjacent marine retailers (OneWater, NASDAQ: ONEW), or a boats-and-engines bellwether (Brunswick, NYSE: BC) [10][11][12][13]. The largest operators — Safe Harbor (~138 marinas) and Suntex (100+ marinas) — are privately held by financial sponsors [13][15]. The child primer's Section 4 details each proxy and the major private platforms; the cleanest direct exposure remains private-market ownership.

5. How the money works

A marina stacks several revenue lines on top of scarce waterfront capacity [17]: slip and storage rental (the recurring, contracted anchor, billed by boat length; dry-stack racks multiply slip income without adding water), fuel (thin, ~10–20% gross margin, but sticky traffic), service, repair, and the ship's store (higher-margin and relatively counter-cyclical), and food, beverage, retail leases, events, and lodging at resort sites. The cost base is real-asset heavy — waterfront rent or concession payments, payroll, utilities, dock and seawall maintenance, dredging, insurance, property taxes, and environmental compliance — which creates operating leverage but makes storms and major repairs expensive.

The metrics that matter are industry-specific: occupancy/utilization, revenue per occupied slip or linear foot, renewal/churn and waitlist depth, fuel volume and gross profit, and the share of income from ancillary services. Cash flow is measured as EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) for operating companies and NOI (net operating income) for the real estate. Quality coastal marinas trade around 11–14x EBITDA per broker reports, and because a new marina is so hard to build, replacement cost often sets a floor under value [18]. See the child primer for the full treatment.

6. Demand drivers

Demand comes from the installed boat base — about 11.5 million registered recreational vessels in 2023 — where slips, not boats, are the binding constraint [20]; discretionary spending and the boating cycle (roughly $55.6 billion in 2024 U.S. recreational-marine retail spending, down ~2.6%, though boat usage held up better than new-boat sales) [19]; coastal and Sun Belt migration concentrating demand where slip supply is tightest; constrained supply from limited waterfront and long permitting; and new access models such as boat clubs [12]. Demand tracks disposable income, home equity, and financing costs. (NMMA is the National Marine Manufacturers Association, the industry trade body.)

7. Regulation

Marinas are lightly regulated as businesses but heavily regulated as waterfront structures — which raises operating costs modestly while protecting incumbents enormously by making new marinas very hard to build. Building or expanding docks in navigable water requires approval from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) under Section 10 of the Rivers and Harbors Act and Section 404 of the Clean Water Act [18]. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and states regulate fueling, spills, sewage, and stormwater (including the SPCC oil-storage rule and NPDES stormwater program) [19][20][21]. Because the seabed is typically public-trust land, marinas usually operate under state submerged-land leases rather than owning the water bottom, and ADA accessibility standards apply to slips [22]. Full detail is in the child primer's Section 7.

8. Consolidation

For decades this was a fragmented, family-run business with no national brands; that is changing. Since the late 2010s, well-capitalized platforms — Safe Harbor and Suntex above all — have been acquiring independents to build national networks. Landmark moves: Blackstone's $5.65 billion purchase of Safe Harbor from Sun Communities in 2025, Suntex's merger with Windward Marina Group, and infrastructure investor Stonepeak's 2026 recapitalization of Southern Marinas [13][14][15][16]. Yet even after all this dealmaking, no single company holds more than about 5% of the U.S. market, consistent with the federal CR4 of 6.9% [3] — a long runway for the roll-up thesis, tempered by the fact that each site's permits, leases, water depth, and local politics cannot be standardized away.

9. Risks

The main risks (detailed in the child primer): weather and climate (hurricanes, surge, freezes; rising and harder-to-obtain insurance); cyclicality (discretionary spend tied to rates and confidence — not defensive like a utility); capital intensity (lumpy dredging, dock, and seawall costs, and deferred-maintenance liabilities); valuation and leverage (institutional buying has lifted entry multiples while higher rates raise the cost of roll-up debt) [18]; regulatory and lease risk (dependence on state submerged-land leases and concession renewals); environmental liability (fuel spills, stormwater, contaminated sediments); labor shortages; and public-proxy risk (the listed names carry heavy boat-retail and manufacturing exposure, so buying them "for marinas" really buys the broader boating cycle).

10. How to invest & outlook

Public routes offer exposure to the theme and to the boats, not a clean marina pure-play: MarineMax (HZO) is the purest listed operating proxy, with OneWater (ONEW), Brunswick (BC), and Blackstone (BX) as adjacent or indirect plays [10][11][12][13]. Private routes are where the real ownership sits — buying an individual marina, a regional roll-up, waterfront real estate with a separate operator, private credit or preferred equity, or a private-equity/infrastructure fund. Underwrite whether you control the waterfront, how long the lease or concession lasts and whether permits transfer, how much expansion capacity remains, and whether maintenance capital has been deferred; do not value on gross receipts.

Outlook. Constructive but selective. The bull case rests on durable slip scarcity, a large installed fleet (~11.5M registered vessels), Sun Belt migration, and a long consolidation runway from a still-fragmented base [3][19][20]. The tempering factors are a softer new-boat sales cycle, elevated interest rates that weigh on leveraged buyers, and rising insurance and climate exposure on the coasts. The industry's defining feature — you can't build more waterfront — is likely to keep a floor under values; returns will hinge on buying the right waterfront rights at the right price.

Because 71393 is a single-child industry, this page is a summary. For the complete primer, see 713930 Marinas.

---

Sources

1. U.S. Census Bureau. "713930 Marinas: 2022 NAICS Definition." https://www.census.gov/naics/?details=713930&year=2022
2. U.S. Census Bureau. "Concentration of Largest Firms for the U.S.: 2022" (Economic Census; NAICS 713930 — receipts, firms, CR4/CR8/CR20/CR50, HHI). https://data.census.gov/table/ECNSIZE2022.EC2200SIZECONCEN?codeset=naics~713930
3. U.S. Census Bureau. "County Business Patterns: 2023" (NAICS 713930 — establishments, employees, payroll, first-quarter payroll). https://data.census.gov/table/CBP2023.CB2300CBP?codeset=naics~713930
4. U.S. Census Bureau. "County Business Patterns Methodology." https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp/technical-documentation/methodology.html
5. MarinaSeeker / Simply Marinas. "Every Marina in America" and "The Marina Market in 2025" (facility-count estimates ~9,300–10,500). 2025. https://www.marinaseeker.com/; https://www.simplymarinas.com/the-marina-market-in-2025/
6. Sun Powered Yachts. "Who are the top 5 marina operators in the US?" (industry ownership-mix estimate: ~70% private, ~30% government, 1–2% yacht clubs). 2025. https://www.sunpoweredyachts.com/single-post/who-are-the-top-5-marina-operators-in-the-us
7. MarineMax, Inc. "2025 Annual Report on Form 10-K" (65+ marina/storage locations, IGY Marinas, seasonality, revenue mix). 2025. https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001057060&type=10-K
8. OneWater Marine Inc. "2025 Annual Report on Form 10-K" (~95 retail locations; storage/marina revenue recognition). 2025. https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001772921&type=10-K
9. Brunswick Corporation. "2025 Annual Report on Form 10-K" (Freedom Boat Club ~440 locations, 60,000+ memberships). 2026. https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0000014930&type=10-K
10. Blackstone. "Blackstone Infrastructure to Acquire Safe Harbor Marinas in $5.65B Transaction" (and completion release; ~138 marinas). 2025. https://www.blackstone.com/news/press/blackstone-infrastructure-to-acquire-safe-harbor-marinas-in-5-65b-transaction/
11. Sun Communities, Inc. "Sun Communities Completes Sale of Safe Harbor Marinas to Blackstone Infrastructure for $5.65 Billion." April 2025. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/04/30/3071812/0/en/Sun-Communities-Inc-Completes-Sale-of-Safe-Harbor-Marinas-to-Blackstone-Infrastructure.html
12. Suntex Marinas. "Suntex and Windward Marina Group Announce Merger of Marina Portfolios" (100+ marinas, 34 in Florida; +13 locations, 3,000+ slips). 2025–2026. https://suntex.com/press-releases/suntex-and-windward-marina-group-announce-merger-of-marina-portfolios/
13. Stonepeak. "Southern Marinas Announces Recapitalization by Stonepeak" (16 marinas, eight states, 6,700+ slips). 2026. https://stonepeak.com/news/southern-marinas-announces-recapitalization-by-stonepeak
14. SVN Marinas. "Marina Revenue Streams Explained." 2025. https://svnmarinas.com/marina-revenue-streams/
15. Seaport Real Estate Group. "What Makes a Marina a Strong Commercial Investment in 2026?" (broker-reported EBITDA multiples, per-slip revenue, replacement-cost floor). 2026. https://www.seaportre.com/blog/marina-commercial-investment-2026.html
16. National Marine Manufacturers Association (NMMA). "2024 U.S. Recreational Boating Statistical Abstract" ($55.6B retail spending; in-use fleet). 2025. https://www.nmma.org/statistics/publications/statistical-abstract
17. U.S. Coast Guard. "2023 Recreational Boating Statistics" (11,546,512 registered vessels in 2023; 11,770,383 in 2022). 2024. https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/2023-recreational-boating-statistics
18. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. "Regulatory Program and Permits" (Section 10 Rivers and Harbors Act; Section 404 Clean Water Act). 2026. https://www.usace.army.mil/Missions/Civil-Works/Regulatory-Program-and-Permits/
19. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "Marinas and Boating: National Management Measures" and Clean Marina Program. 2026. https://www.epa.gov/nps/marinas-and-boating-national-management-measures
20. U.S. EPA. "Who Is Regulated by the SPCC Rule?" (1,320-gal aboveground / 42,000-gal buried thresholds). 2026. https://www.epa.gov/oil-spills-prevention-and-preparedness-regulations/who-regulated-spcc-rule
21. U.S. EPA. "Industrial Stormwater: Sector Q — Water Transportation" (NPDES). 2026. https://www3.epa.gov/npdes/pubs/sector_q_watertransportation.pdf
22. U.S. Access Board. "Chapter 10: Recreational Boating Facilities" (ADA accessible-slip standards). 2026. https://www.access-board.gov/ada/guides/chapter-10-boating-facilities/