Census data
Salon profit margins: what US salons kept from 2013 to 2024
A US beauty salon with paid staff keeps about 15 to 16 cents of every dollar it takes in after paying its team, rent, products and every other operating cost. In 2024 the share was 15.7%; in every year since 2013 except 2020 it stayed between 12.6% and 19.2%. Nail salons keep more, barbershops vary the most. These are the Census Bureau's figures for every salon with employees in the country, not a survey of one software company's customers.
US Census Bureau figures for 2013 to 2024, read October 14, 2026. How the margins are worked out · Download every year (CSV)
Finding 1
Beauty salons with staff keep about 16 cents of each dollar
In 2024, US beauty salons with paid employees took in $27.5 billion and spent $23.2 billion running the business, leaving 15.7% of revenue ($4.3 billion) before income taxes. Over the 12 years from 2013, that share stayed between 12.6% and 19.2% in every year but one, and the middle of those years was 15.8%.
The exception is 2020: closures cut revenue by 28% while costs fell only 19%, and the margin dropped to 8.3%. Rent and other fixed costs do not close when the doors do. Revenue was back above its 2019 level by 2022.
Spread over the 83,392 beauty salon locations with staff in the 2022 Economic Census, that is about $307,800 of revenue and $52,600 left over per location in 2022, the most recent year with a full count.
2013 to 2024
What salons with staff kept, year by year
Revenue minus operating expenses, as a share of revenue, for every US business with paid employees in each trade.
| Year | Beauty salons | Nail salons | Barbershops | Day spas and other |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024* | 15.7% | 20.1% | 25.1% | 7.7% |
| 2023* | 12.6% | 23.0% | 20.3% | 20.9% |
| 2022 | 17.1% | 21.6% | 18.5% | 21.5% |
| 2021 | 14.5% | 22.2% | 16.3% | 22.9% |
| 2020 | 8.3% | 16.2% | 12.4% | 18.6% |
| 2019 | 19.2% | 27.2% | 19.8% | 22.8% |
| 2018 | 18.2% | 26.9% | 18.2% | 23.6% |
| 2017 | 15.8% | 22.7% | 11.2% | 19.2% |
| 2016 | 16.0% | 24.2% | 14.9% | 20.1% |
| 2015 | 16.2% | 25.0% | 16.3% | 19.7% |
| 2014 | 15.0% | 22.7% | 14.4% | 17.3% |
| 2013 | 13.2% | 21.7% | 12.4% | 16.2% |
* From 2023, the Annual Integrated Economic Survey, which replaced the Service Annual Survey; the change of survey can move figures by a few points. 2020 reflects the pandemic closures. “Day spas and other” is the Census group for other personal care services, which also includes massage, tanning, hair removal, tattoo and piercing studios.
Finding 2
Nail salons keep the most; barbershops swing the most
Nail salons with staff kept 20.1% in 2024 and between 16.2% and 27.2% in every year since 2013, the highest share of the three salon trades in 11 of the 12 years.
Barbershops with staff kept 25.1% in 2024, their best year in the series. Barbershops with payroll are a small group (7,025 locations in 2022), so their figures carry the widest survey error: treat any single year as several points either way, and the middle year since 2013, 16.3%, as the steadier guide.
Day spas, massage, tanning and similar businesses, which the Census groups with tattoo and piercing studios as other personal care services, kept 7.7% in 2024 after 16.2% to 23.6% in every earlier year: their costs rose 27% in one year while revenue rose 8%. One year is not yet a new normal; next year's figures will show whether it holds.
Finding 3
Payroll decides most of the difference
Wages and salaries took 43.6% of beauty salon revenue in 2024 and 44.1% at barbershops, but only 30.5% at nail salons. Nail salons spend more of each dollar on everything else (49.4% against 40.8% at beauty salons: rent, supplies, products, contract labor, card fees and the rest), and still keep more, because the payroll gap is larger.
Each employee brought in about $70,100 of revenue at beauty salons, $80,400 at nail salons and $72,700 at barbershops in 2024 (employees counted in March, part-time included). That is the number an owner moves most directly: a fuller book and fewer gaps raise revenue per person without adding payroll. The stylist pay calculator shows what a commission split or hourly wage costs you per service.
| Trade | Wages | All other costs | Kept | Revenue per employee |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beauty salons | 43.6% | 40.8% | 15.7% | $70,100 |
| Nail salons | 30.5% | 49.4% | 20.1% | $80,400 |
| Barbershops | 44.1% | 30.7% | 25.1% | $72,700 |
| Day spas and other | 36.8% | 55.5% | 7.7% | $79,400 |
Finding 4
Why you also see 8%: two different measures
Industry articles often put the average salon's net profit near 8%. That figure and the Census figure measure different things. The Census margin is revenue minus operating costs: payroll (including the salary of an owner who is paid through payroll), benefits, contract labor, rent, utilities, products and supplies, repairs, advertising, insurance, interest, fees and other running costs, before income taxes.
Most salons with staff are corporations: 72% of beauty salon locations with employees in 2023, 59% of them S corporations, which must pay a working owner a reasonable salary through payroll before taking distributions. In the other 28%, sole proprietorships and partnerships, the owner is not on payroll, so the owner's own pay comes out of the margin. A net figure taken after a full market salary for the owner and after income tax will sit well below the Census margin, which is how both numbers can be right.
Finding 5
Solo stylists and suite renters are not in these figures
The margins on this page cover salons with paid employees. Most of the industry has none: 1.34 million hair, nail and skin care businesses ran without payroll in 2024, many of them stylists renting a booth or a suite, and a one-person beauty salon business took in $30,832 on average. The Census does not publish their costs, so no official margin exists for them.
For a solo stylist the useful number is take-home pay: receipts minus booth or suite rent, products, booking software, card fees and other costs. The salon owner income calculator works it out from your own numbers, and the booth rental agreement template covers what a rent arrangement should spell out.
Finding 6
How to compare your salon with these figures
Use the same definition. Take a full year's revenue, subtract every operating cost (wages and payroll taxes, your own salary if you pay yourself through payroll, benefits, rent, products for resale and back-bar supplies, card fees, software, marketing, insurance, repairs and loan interest), and divide what is left by revenue. Do not subtract income tax or loan principal. If you own the salon as a sole proprietor and take no salary, set a fair wage for your own hours aside first; otherwise your margin will look higher than an incorporated salon's for the same business.
If you land well below the range for your trade, look first at payroll that runs ahead of bookings (gaps in the book, often early in the week), rent sized for more chairs than you fill, and retail that barely sells. The revenue leak calculator prices what missed calls, no-shows and lost rebookings cost you.
Method
How the margins are worked out
What is counted. Census Bureau figures for US businesses with paid employees in four industries: beauty salons (NAICS 812112: hair, cosmetology and full-service salons, including day spas that offer hair services), nail salons (812113), barber shops (812111), and other personal care services (812199: day spas without hair services, massage parlors, tanning, hair removal, tattoo and piercing studios and similar). Revenue and total operating expenses come from the Service Annual Survey for 2013 to 2022, and from the Annual Integrated Economic Survey (2023, 2024), which replaced it.
The margin. For each industry and year we compute revenue minus total operating expenses, divided by revenue. Operating expenses cover payroll, benefits, contract labor, rent and leases, utilities, supplies and products bought for resale, repairs, advertising, professional services, insurance, interest, taxes and license fees, and other operating costs; income taxes are not among them. The Census publishes revenue and expenses, not a margin, so the percentages are our arithmetic on its figures, and the figures are totals across all salons, so a larger salon counts for more than a small one.
Payroll, employees, locations. Annual payroll (wages and salaries before deductions, without benefits) and employees in the pay period including March 12 come from the AIES. Per-location figures for 2022 divide the 2022 Economic Census revenue, which the Service Annual Survey matches exactly, by its count of locations. The share of salons that are corporations comes from County Business Patterns 2023, which counts locations with employees by legal form.
Accuracy. These are sample estimates. In 2024 the coefficient of variation was 2% for beauty salon revenue and 1.8% for its expenses, 5% and 4.7% for nail salons, and 5.7% and 4.8% for barber shops, so one year's margin for barbers or nail salons can be several points off. The switch to a new survey in 2023 can move figures too. Read the trend across several years rather than the change from one year to the next.
Limits. National totals for salons with employees. They say nothing about businesses without employees, they do not split out med spas (which are classified with medical offices when a clinician owns them), and an individual salon's margin can sit far from the average in either direction.
Every year's revenue, expenses, payroll and employees, with the margin computed from them, is in the CSV download. Census figures are public; terms for this compilation are on the methodology page.
Questions
Salon profit margins, answered
What is the average profit margin for a hair salon?
What is the profit margin of a nail salon?
What is the profit margin of a barbershop?
Is owning a salon profitable?
What percentage of salon revenue goes to payroll?
How much profit does a salon make a year?
Can I use these numbers in an article?
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