How many gyms are in the US: Census and industry counts, chains and franchise groups, and how to build a list

This page is for anyone who needs the number of gyms in America, and for companies that sell to them: fitness equipment and servicing, club management software, payments, cleaning and facilities, insurance, nutrition products and staffing. It sets the official and industry counts side by side, breaks them down by state, size and owner, and shows how to build a list and who buys.

How many gyms there are in the US

Why the counts differ

• What counts as a gym. The Census industry includes yoga and Pilates fitness studios, but puts yoga and Pilates instruction schools in education and personal trainers who have no facility in personal services. Ice rinks, swimming pools and tennis clubs sit in the same industry as gyms.
• Employees. County Business Patterns counts only locations with paid employees, so an owner-run studio with no staff isn't in it. The Census nonemployer figures don't separate gyms from golf courses, marinas and bowling centers.
• Industry methods. HFA's count comes from an economic impact study of clubs and studios with its own method, and it's 13,738 higher than the Census count.
• Gyms inside other businesses. Fitness rooms in apartment buildings, hotels, offices and schools are usually counted as part of those places, not as gyms.

Gyms by size

Fitness centers paid $13.5 billion in wages to 708,273 employees, about $19,070 a head (our calculation). By legal form, 15,108 locations are S corporations, 10,555 partnerships, 5,919 C corporations, 4,894 sole proprietorships and 4,826 nonprofits. The nonprofit locations, such as YMCAs and community centers, are large: they employ 187,306 people, 26% of the industry's workforce, about 39 per location.

Gyms by state

Chains and franchise groups

Public chains report their counts in their annual reports:

The Planet Fitness numbers show where the buying power sits. Its 2,604 franchised clubs are run by 86 franchisee groups, about 30 clubs each; about 98% of franchised clubs belong to a group with at least three, and the largest franchisee owns 208. Planet Fitness also says it provides Planet Fitness-branded equipment from leading suppliers and gets better purchasing terms and warranties for the system. For a branded club, the decision is often made by the franchisee group or the brand, not at the club.

Demand: how many people go to the gym

HFA's 2026 report counted 81 million fitness facility members in 2025, up 5.2% on 2024 and 26.1% of Americans aged six and over, who made nearly 7 billion visits. Planet Fitness alone ended 2025 with about 20.8 million members.

How to get a list of gyms

State registers are partial: New York's 215 filings compare with 2,498 fitness centers with employees in the state. For franchised brands, the disclosure document's franchisee list is the most complete public source of owners.

Who buys at a gym

As general guidance:

Worked example: equipment servicing in Colorado

Illustrative example. The company and its rates are invented; the counts are Census County Business Patterns figures for 2023.

The seller: Front Range Fitness Service (frontrange-service.example) repairs and maintains commercial gym equipment. The territory: Colorado.

1. Count the market. Colorado has 972 fitness centers with employees. 138 have 20 to 49 employees, 51 have 50 to 99 and 18 have 100 or more: 207 sites large enough for a service contract.
2. Sort by owner. For each branded site, look up the franchisee in the brand's disclosure document; one group may hold ten sites. Independents and nonprofits are approached one by one.
3. Do the arithmetic. At an illustrative $4,800 a site each year, winning 15% of the 207 sites gives 31 contracts and $148,800 a year. Winning one franchisee group with 12 sites gets there faster than 12 separate sales.
4. Find the buyer. Finding the operations lead at each franchisee group, and what's changed (new sites, a remodel, an acquisition), is the slow part; Bebop finds the contacts and researches each company in the list.

Subject: Equipment uptime across your [number] Colorado clubs

Hi [first name],

I saw [group] opened [new location] this year, which I think makes [number] clubs on the Front Range.

Multi-club operators tell us the cost isn't the repair, it's the treadmill that sits with an out-of-order sign for a week while members notice.

We service commercial equipment for groups with 5 to 30 sites, with one contract and one report across all of them. Would a 15-minute call to compare your last quarter's downtime be useful?

[Your name]
[Phone number]

Next step: use the NAICS code for a personal trainer page to see where trainers and studios are classified, or start with how to sell to small businesses.