NAICS code for landscaping and lawn care: 561730, and when it isn't

This page is for landscaping and lawn care companies filling in a NAICS or SIC field (SAM.gov, an insurer, a bank, a city vendor form) and for sellers building lists of landscapers. It covers the code, the boundary cases, the SIC equivalents, how many businesses there are and where to find the larger ones.

The NAICS code for landscaping is 561730

561730, Landscaping Services, sits in Sector 56 (Administrative and Support Services) under 5617, Services to Buildings and Dwellings. The Census Bureau's definition has two parts: firms that care for and maintain landscapes or install trees, shrubs, plants, lawns and gardens; and firms that do that work along with designing landscape plans or building walkways, retaining walls, decks, fences and ponds.

The Census index puts all of these in 561730: lawn mowing, fertilizing, seeding, spraying and weed control; sod laying and hydroseeding; tree pruning, removal and surgery, and arborist services; interior and tropical plant maintenance; lawn irrigation services; cemetery plot care; mowing highway strips; and seasonal property maintenance (snow plowing in winter, landscaping the rest of the year).

The codes next to it, and how to choose

The Census cross-references draw the line by what the firm mainly does:

The rule underneath the table: NAICS classifies by primary activity, which in practice means the largest share of revenue. A landscaper that builds the odd wall stays in 561730; a hardscape contractor that plants around its patios belongs in construction. Tree care companies have their own edge cases, such as right-of-way clearing for construction, which the cross-references send to Sector 23; the NAICS code for tree service page covers them.

561730 didn't change in the 2022 revision. One neighbor did: nursery and garden centers moved from 444220 to 444240 when retail was restructured.

The SIC codes for landscaping

In the 1987 SIC, landscaping was an agricultural service (Major Group 07). NAICS moved it to building services.

Both 0782 and 0783 map wholly to 561730, so a lawn care firm can use 0782 and a tree care firm 0783 on forms that still ask for SIC. The SEC's EDGAR list doesn't carry these codes: listed landscapers file under 0700, Agricultural Services.

How many landscaping businesses there are

County Business Patterns 2023 counts 117,969 establishments in 561730 with 802,899 employees and $41.18 billion in annual payroll. These are locations with paid employees, on a 2017 NAICS basis (unchanged for this code).

The states with the most landscaping establishments are Florida (10,670), California (9,393), New York (7,725), Texas (5,568) and Pennsylvania (5,179).

Three limits matter for this industry. CBP leaves out owner-operators with no employees, who are a large share of lawn care. It counts locations, so a national firm's branches each appear. And it measures employment in the week of March 12, when crews in the north are still being hired, so the employee count understates summer headcount; annual payroll ($41,177,464,000) captures the whole year.

For comparison, 541320 Landscape Architectural Services has 5,176 establishments and 29,046 employees, and 561790 (which includes plow-only firms) has 18,069 establishments.

SBA size standards

For federal grounds maintenance and snow removal contracts, these are the size standards in the SBA's table effective March 17, 2023, measured in average annual receipts over your last five completed fiscal years:

Some lookup sites still show older figures for 561730 ($7.5 million); use the SBA table. The small business size standards page explains how receipts and affiliates are counted.

Where the code gets used, and what a wrong one costs

• Federal and municipal bids. The contracting officer assigns one code per solicitation. A snow removal contract coded 561790 and a grounds contract coded 561730 have different size standards, and the code on the solicitation is the one that decides whether you're small.
• Tax returns. The IRS Schedule C list uses 561730, Landscaping services, the same as NAICS.
• Licenses and insurance. States license landscape construction separately from maintenance. California's Contractors State License Board, for example, issues the C-27 Landscaping license for patios, retaining walls, irrigation and similar work, while gardeners who only maintain yards generally don't need one. If your code says maintenance but you build walls, expect questions from an insurer or a licensing board.

Finding landscaping companies

Only a handful of landscapers report to the SEC, under SIC 0700 (EDGAR list for SIC 0700):

BrightView's 10-K says it holds about 1.5% of the combined landscape maintenance and snow removal market, which tells you how fragmented the industry is. Nearly all of the 117,969 establishments are private. State contractor license lists (such as California's C-27 holders) find the firms that build; for maintenance firms, filter by size: the 8,191 establishments with 20 or more employees are the ones with an office manager, a fleet and a buying process. Bebop finds them from a plain-language description and researches each account.

Worked example

Illustrative example. The company and figures are invented to show the method.

Greenline Grounds (greenline.example) has 22 employees near Columbus, Ohio. Revenue: 65% commercial grounds maintenance, 20% winter snow plowing for the same clients, 15% paver patios and walkways.

1. Primary code: 561730. Plowing for maintenance clients is seasonal property maintenance, which the Census index puts in 561730, and the patios are a minority of revenue.
2. Other codes to list in SAM.gov: 561790, so it's found when an agency buys snow removal on its own, and 238990 for patio bids.
3. Size check: receipts over five years total $12.0 million, an average of $2.4 million: small under 561730 ($9.5 million), 561790 ($9.0 million) and 238990 ($19.0 million).
4. SIC for the bank's form: 0782.

Next step: see how the same rules work for construction trades on the NAICS code for construction page.