How many gas stations are in the US: the Census, NACS and EPA counts, by state, and how to build a list

This page is for anyone who needs the number of gas stations in America, and for companies that sell to them: fuel equipment and tank services, payments and point of sale, food service and merchandise, car washes, EV charging and environmental compliance. It sets out each count and why they differ, breaks them down by state, size and owner, and shows how to build a list of sites with an owner attached.

How many gas stations there are in the US

The two Census counts together give about 116,700 gas stations (our calculation, adding 2023 and 2024 figures). The 168,000 figure still quoted on some sites is a 2004 count from National Petroleum News.

Why the counts differ

• Census classifies each location by its main business. A fuel station on the lot of a warehouse club or supermarket is usually counted as part of that store, not as a gas station.
• NACS counts stores, not fuel sites. Its 122,620 covers convenience stores with pumps, which is most fuel sold to consumers. Gas stations without a store, truck stops and big-box fuel sites sit outside it.
• EPA counts tanks. Any site with a regulated underground tank counts, whether or not it sells fuel to the public, so its 190,224 facilities and 534,189 active tanks overstate retail stations.
• Charging stations are separate. The Department of Energy counts public EV charging locations on their own, wherever they are.

Gas stations by state

The NACS column counts all convenience stores, with and without fuel. California has the most stations without a convenience store (1,350), followed by New Jersey (1,185).

Gas stations by size

Gas stations with employees employed 1,016,960 people in March 2023, with an annual payroll of $29.7 billion. That's about nine employees per station.

Who owns them

Most stations are run by small operators. 95,672 convenience stores (63%) belong to companies with 10 or fewer stores, while companies with more than 500 stores hold 22.2%. The brand on the canopy is often not the owner: many branded stations are run by independent dealers that buy fuel from a wholesaler. Some of the largest operators report their store counts:

ARKO's split is typical of the wholesale model: a company can run a thousand stores and supply fuel to twice as many sites it doesn't operate.

How to get a list of gas stations

There's no national list, but there are good public sources:

The tank registers are the most useful because they name the owner, not just the brand. Texas's file, for example, has 15,279 facilities with an in-use gasoline tank, and the install dates show which sites have old equipment. Federal rules also require owners to name at least one Class A and one Class B operator for the tanks at each facility, trained people who are often the right contact for compliance and equipment.

Who buys at a gas station

As general guidance:

At a single-store owner the decision is usually one person, often on site, and the sale is short. At a chain it runs through a category or facilities team on a planned schedule.

Worked example: tank compliance services in Houston

Illustrative example. The company and its rates are invented; the counts come from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality's delivery certificate data on 30 October 2026.

The seller: Bayou Tank Services (bayou-tank.example) tests tanks and lines and handles compliance paperwork for fuel sites. The territory: Harris County, Texas.

1. Pull the register. Harris County has 2,730 facilities with an in-use gasoline tank, held under 1,723 owner names, about 1.6 sites per owner.
2. Find the urgent accounts. 717 of those facilities have a gasoline tank installed before 1996, more than 30 years ago. Those are the likeliest sites to need repairs or replacement.
3. Do the arithmetic. If Bayou wins an illustrative 5% of the 2,730 facilities at $1,200 a site each year, that's 137 sites and $164,400 a year. Adding replacement projects at an illustrative 2% of the 717 older sites is about 14 projects.
4. Reach the owner. The register gives the owner and mailing address. For multi-site owners, finding the operations or facilities person and checking what's changed (a new site, an acquisition, a rebrand) is the slow part; Bebop finds the contacts and researches each company in the list.

Subject: Tank testing across your [number] Harris County sites

Hi [first name],

The state tank register shows [company] runs [number] sites in Harris County, and [site address] still has a gasoline tank installed in [year].

Owners with sites that age tell us the hard part isn't the testing, it's keeping every site's paperwork current when inspections land in the same month.

We test tanks and lines and keep the records for operators with 3 to 50 sites. Would a 15-minute call to compare your test calendar against ours be useful?

[Your name]
[Phone number]

Next step: see the NAICS code for a gas station to count stations in any county, or build the full target list with our guide to building a prospect list.