How many electrical contractors are there by state? A 2026 data study

How many electrical contractor businesses the US has

The Census Bureau's County Business Patterns (CBP) survey counts business establishments by industry code every year. NAICS 238210, "Electrical Contractors and Other Wiring Installation Contractors," covers firms that wire, install and repair electrical systems in buildings. The 2023 state-level file lists 83,342 such establishments across the 50 states and DC, employing 1,015,983 people and paying $77.8 billion in total annual payroll.

That is up from 81,842 establishments and 951,773 employees in the 2022 file, a 1.8% rise in establishments and a 6.7% rise in employment in one year. Establishments and employment do not have to move together: the gain suggests existing shops added staff faster than new shops opened, rather than the trade simply growing in headcount of businesses.

Where electrical contractors cluster per capita

Raw counts mostly track population, so the more useful comparison is establishments per 100,000 residents. By that measure the leaders are not the big states but small, rural, cold-weather ones. Wyoming has 52.2 electrical contractor establishments per 100,000 residents, more than double the national rate of 24.9. Vermont, New Hampshire, Montana and Maine form the rest of the top five.

A likely driver is climate and building stock: homes and seasonal properties in these states need more heating-related electrical work (and generator, well-pump and HVAC tie-ins) relative to a smaller population, and low population density supports more small, local shops rather than a few large ones. At the other end, West Virginia, Mississippi and Ohio sit near 16 to 17 per 100,000, and the District of Columbia, with almost no single-family housing stock, is lowest at 3.2.

Most electrical contractors are small shops

CBP breaks establishment counts down by employment size class. Nationally, 48,799 establishments have fewer than 5 employees and another 15,277 have 5 to 9, for 64,076 of the 83,342 total, or 76.9%, with fewer than 10 people on staff. That share holds up even in the states with the most establishments in raw count, so this is a trade dominated by small, owner-operated shops almost everywhere, not just in rural areas.

What the payroll data shows

CBP also reports total annual payroll by industry. Dividing the 2023 national payroll ($77.8 billion) by the reported employment count (1,015,983) gives an average of about $76,500 per employee for the year. Treat this as a rough, establishment-level figure, not a published wage rate: it mixes field electricians with office, sales and ownership payroll, and divides a full-year payroll figure by a single reference-week employment count.

We would normally cross-check this against the Bureau of Labor Statistics' occupational wage data for the electrician occupation specifically (SOC 47-2111), which reports a cleaner per-worker wage. bls.gov returned a 403 to every request this run, so that comparison is not in this post; if you need an occupational wage rather than an industry-payroll average, pull OEWS data for SOC 47-2111 directly from BLS.

What this means for staffing and after-hours calls

A trade where more than three in four businesses run under 10 employees is a trade where the owner, or one or two office staff, is usually the one answering the phone. That makes a missed call expensive in a very direct way: there is often nobody else to take it. New-customer calls in particular tend to arrive during the workday, when the same small team is on a roof, in an attic or on a ladder.

1. 1

   Pull your own missed-call count before assuming a number

   Check your phone provider's call log for a full month and count calls that went to voicemail or rang out, separate from calls you answered. State and vendor averages are a poor substitute for your own number.

2. 2

   Separate new-customer calls from existing-customer calls

   A prospective customer who gets no answer usually calls the next electrician on their list. An existing customer calling about a scheduled job is less likely to walk. Route and measure them differently.

3. 3

   Decide what a covered call should produce

   For a new lead, the useful outcome is a booked estimate or a captured name, number and job description, not just a message taken.

4. 4

   Price the gap before buying coverage

   Multiply your estimated missed new-customer calls per month by your close rate and average job value to see what the gap is actually worth, then weigh that against the cost of an answering service or an AI receptionist like Lead Friendly's.

Methodology

• Establishment, employment and payroll counts: U.S. Census Bureau County Business Patterns, 2023 state-level file (cbp23st.zip) and national file (cbp23us.zip), filtered to NAICS 238210, legal form of organization "total." 2022 comparison figures come from the equivalent 2022 files.
• Small-business share: establishments in CBP's "<5 employees" and "5 to 9 employees" size classes, summed and divided by total establishments, by state and nationally.
• Per-100,000 rate: state establishment count divided by the Census Bureau's Vintage 2023 state population estimate (POPESTIMATE2023), multiplied by 100,000.
• Average annual pay: national annual payroll (in dollars) divided by national employment, both from the 2023 national CBP file. This is an establishment-payroll average, not a published occupational wage.