Car Wash Video Statistics

Key takeaways

1. Children's and animation channels drew 48.5% of the views of the 571 most-viewed YouTube videos for 'car wash', 'car detailing' and 'ceramic coating', detailing and cleaning creators 16.5%, and detailing businesses 5.3% (our read, Nov 2026). (Mark Studios) See details
2. Car wash operators posted 1 of those 571 videos, a Tommy's Express clip, and detailing businesses that list the United States as their country drew 0.9% of the views. (Mark Studios) See details
3. The official YouTube channels of 10 U.S. car wash chains and the two trade bodies had 40,958 subscribers combined; their uploads in the past year had a median of 1,714 views, and the International Carwash Association's a median of 39. (Mark Studios) See details
4. None of the 200 location pages we read from five car wash chains showed a video (0.0%), though 39.5% linked to a YouTube channel (our read, Nov 2026). (Mark Studios) See details
5. Every sampled location page mentioned an unlimited or membership plan (100.0%), but 36.5% said a membership can be cancelled anytime, online or in the app. (Mark Studios) See details
6. BLS counted 19,840 U.S. car wash establishments with employees in 2025, up 35.6% from 2015, paying an average of $33,518 a job. (BLS) See details
7. Automatic washing and waxing brought in 56.1% of U.S. car wash receipts in 2022, up from 51.0% in 2017, while detailing fell to 15.8%. (U.S. Census Bureau) See details
8. The four largest car wash firms took 11.7% of U.S. car wash receipts in 2022 and the 50 largest 28.6%. (U.S. Census Bureau) See details
9. Mister Car Wash had 2,271 thousand Unlimited Wash Club members at the end of 2025, and members made up 76% of its wash sales, up from 30% in 2015. (Mister Car Wash filings) See details
10. Mister's 2025 10-K says a member spends more than four times what a retail customer does in one section and about seven times in another, with no method for either. (Mister Car Wash 10-K) See details
11. The '30 gallons per car' figure comes from six metered Northern California conveyor washes in 2017 (30.0 gallons of fresh water); we found no study that measured a home wash, and PolitiFact's one test used 11 gallons. (ICA; PolitiFact) See details
12. The FTC's click-to-cancel rule, whose record names car wash subscriptions, was vacated by the Eighth Circuit on July 8, 2025; New York's law requires businesses to offer cancellation online or by phone when a renewal was agreed in person. (Eighth Circuit; New York) See details

How popular are car detailing videos on YouTube?

YouTube's own Culture & Trends team counted more than 150M views worldwide, from January 1 to June 30, 2026, of videos related to auto detailing with "ASMR" in the title (YouTube). The count covers only titles that say "ASMR", so it undercounts detailing video as a whole, and YouTube does not say how it decides a video is about detailing. The same post marked a YouTube logo doodle for the detailing community. No survey found for this page measures how many car washes or detailers post video of their own.

How do car washes and detailers get found on Google?

In Welcomemat's 2025 client data, "car wash near me" was still the top-performing search phrase for car washes (Welcomemat), and 55% of Google Business Profile interactions were requests for directions (Welcomemat). About 15% were calls, with website clicks and other actions making up the rest (Welcomemat). Welcomemat is a marketing agency that sells only to car washes and oil-change shops; these are its own clients, not a sample of all car washes, and it publishes no site count on the page. People who open a car wash's profile are mostly trying to get there.

Google sets what a profile can show. Business Profile videos can run up to 30 seconds (Google), up to 75 MB (Google) and must be 720p or higher (Google). Photos should have no significant alterations or excessive filters, so that the image should represent reality (Google), a rule that bears on edited before-and-after paint correction shots. In paid search, "Car Detailing Service" (Google) and "Car Wash" (Google) are separate Local Services Ads categories in the U.S., depending on area. Google's Verified badge is not offered for verticals in the auto, beauty, and dining categories (Google), and advertisers who regularly miss calls or messages are told their ad ranking may be affected (Google).

What star rating do car washes have, and how do customers use reviews?

The average Google rating for the car wash industry was 4.4 in 2025, according to Welcomemat's data from its client locations (Welcomemat). No consumer review survey readable for this page breaks out car washes or detailers. The closest is BrightLocal, which sells review-management software: in its January 2023 survey of 1,117 U.S. consumers, automotive services ranked among the three industries where reviews mattered most, with services and trades and healthcare, though BrightLocal does not say whether that category includes car washes (BrightLocal).

BrightLocal's 2026 survey of 1,002 U.S. adults, covering every kind of local business, found that 36% said an appealing photo or video of the product or service accompanying a review made it more trustworthy (BrightLocal). Google's share as a review source fell to 71% from 83% a year earlier (BrightLocal), and BrightLocal names YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok as video platforms gaining ground as places to find reviews (BrightLocal).

What do car washes post on social media, and what do their ads bring in?

Welcomemat's car wash clients often reached 2% to 3% engagement on organic social posts in 2025, against an industry average the agency calls relatively low (Welcomemat). It names team highlights, photos from the wash site and membership offers as the content that tends to work best, without publishing figures by content type (Welcomemat).

Paid offers lose most people before the lot. In Welcomemat's 2025 benchmark data, only about 35% to 40% of consumers who respond to a paid digital offer typically make it to the property (Welcomemat), and for many express washes the step from an ad to an unlimited membership comes 30 to 60 days after the first visit (Welcomemat).

What do memberships, apps and texts do for car washes?

Memberships made up approximately 71% of same-store car wash revenue in Q3 2026, up from 66% a year earlier, according to Rinsed, which sells membership CRM, text and email software and reports from more than 3,000 client locations (Rinsed). Sites with 4,000 or more active monthly members converted 17.1% of retail customers into members that quarter (Rinsed), while sites with fewer than 2,000 members converted 3.3% (Rinsed). Average monthly churn was 7.8% (Rinsed). In Q4 2025, 29.2% of new memberships were former members coming back (Rinsed).

The International Carwash Association (ICA), the trade body, found in its Q1 2026 Pulse survey that nearly 90% of members plan to renew (ICA), and survey data its CEO presented in May 2026 showed roughly 70% of members use a single "home" location, with fewer than 10% visiting more than one site (NACS).

How do customers describe their car wash?

In ICA's Q3 2025 Consumer Pulse survey of 840 U.S. adults who used a professional car wash in the past year, fewer than 10% described their favorite wash as "fun", "inviting" or "energetic" (ICA), and just 51% said they look forward to their next wash (ICA). While 59% said employee friendliness is extremely or very important, only 27% described their favorite wash as "welcoming" (ICA), and 22% said the experience felt very personalized (ICA). Branded chemicals also weigh on choice: in an ICA study discussed with National Car Wash Solutions, which sells those brands to washes, 66% of consumers said brand-name chemistry matters (ICA) and customers would pay about $3 more per wash for it (ICA). ICA does not publish that study's sample size.

What car wash and detailing videos get the most views on YouTube?

Children's songs and cartoons, then detailing and cleaning creators. In our read of the YouTube Data API on November 3, 2026 (14:16 UTC), children's and animation channels drew 48.5% of the views of the 571 most-viewed videos returned for "car wash", "car detailing" and "ceramic coating" (our count), and detailing and cleaning creators drew 16.5% (our count). We asked YouTube for the top 200 results of each search sorted by view count, worldwide, which gave 571 unique videos from 357 channels (our count), and classified every channel by hand from its title and description. This is YouTube's own ranking of what it returned at that moment, not a census of car wash video, and every count is a snapshot. Channels that list the United States as their country posted 39.9% of the videos (our count).

Views are concentrated. The most-viewed video was CoComelon's "Car Wash Song" nursery rhyme, published in 2019, with 1,246,790,578 views (our count), and the 10 most-viewed videos drew 41.3% of all the sample's views (our count). The median video had 3,282,679 views (our count), and 396 of the 571 had at least 1 million (our count). The median video drew 11.9 likes per 1,000 views (our count). View counts include views from ads.

Classification caveats: class calls rest on thin evidence (no or minimal channel description) for 71 videos, which drew 3.3% of the views (our count). Five detailer channels whose descriptions sell entertainment rather than a service (WD Detailing, The Detail Geek, Elite Kleanz Detailing, Mr Zhang's Detailing and TRUE DETAILER) are counted as creators; they drew 2.4% of the views (our count), so counting them as businesses would lift the detailing business share by that much. The product class mixes car-care brands with gadget retailers: car wash machine makers, most of them in China, posted 9 videos (our count), and car-care brands such as Chemical Guys, Adam's Polishes, Ceramic Pro and XPEL posted 15 (our count) that drew 0.1% of the views.

How much of that YouTube attention goes to detailing businesses and car washes?

Little. Detailing business channels drew 5.3% of the views of the 571 videos in our November 3, 2026 sample (our count), though they posted almost a quarter of the videos. Car washes barely appear: car wash operators and chains posted one video, a Tommy's Express Car Wash conveyor clip with 21,261,148 views (our count). U.S. detailers are a small slice: detailing business channels that list the United States as their country drew 0.9% of the views (our count), from 35 videos. About half of the detailing business views went to channels that list no country, and most of the rest to channels in India, the United States and the United Kingdom.

Detailing business channels are smaller than creator channels. The median detailing business channel behind the sample had 21,600 subscribers, against 80,850 for the median detailing and cleaning creator channel (our count). Still, 18 of the 80 detailing business channels had 100,000 or more subscribers (our count). The largest was BROTOMOTIV, a detailing studio in Pune, India, with 2,280,000 subscribers (our count).

Does the picture change between car wash, detailing and ceramic coating searches?

Yes, sharply. "Car wash" is a children's search: children's and animation channels drew 57.4% of the views of its 200 most-viewed videos on November 3, 2026 (our count). The median "car wash" video had about 18.8 million views (the midpoint of the two middle videos), against about 3.1 million for "car detailing" and about 266,000 for "ceramic coating" (our count). "Car detailing" belongs to detailers: detailing business channels drew 24.8% of its views and detailing and cleaning creators 54.9% (our count). "Ceramic coating" is where businesses do best, with 30.7% of the views (our count), but general car and motorcycle creators, mostly in India, drew 31.9% (our count), and car-care and coating brands posted 13 of its 190 videos (our count). The three lists overlap little; 19 videos appeared in more than one.

Short clips punch above their number in detailing: videos of 60 seconds or less made up 26.0% of the "car detailing" results but drew 58.1% of their views (our count). The detailing results are also the newest: 58.0% of them were published in 2025 or 2026 (our count).

How long and how recent are the most-viewed car wash and detailing videos?

Mixed in length, mostly recent. 32.6% of the 571 videos in our November 3, 2026 sample ran 60 seconds or less (our count), and they drew 45.9% of the views. The median video ran 261 seconds (our count), and 23.6% ran longer than 20 minutes (our count), mostly full detailing videos from creators and long children's compilations. The median clip of 60 seconds or less had about 4.5 million views, against about 2.7 million for videos longer than 3 minutes (our count). Detailing businesses lean on short clips more than creators do: 48.1% of their videos ran 60 seconds or less, against 19.7% of the creator videos (our count).

71.6% of the 571 videos were published in 2023 or later (our count) and 40.6% in 2025 or 2026 (our count); 9.3% predate 2020 (our count). The single most common publication year was 2026, at 21.5% of the sample (our count), even with two months of the year left.

How active are car wash chains' and trade bodies' own YouTube channels?

Quiet, with one exception. Of 10 U.S. car wash chains plus the International Carwash Association (ICA) and the International Detailing Association (IDA), Quick Quack Car Wash had the most-subscribed channel, with 23,800 subscribers on November 3, 2026 (our count). Tommy's Express Car Wash posted the most, 113 videos in the 12 months before our read (our count), almost all of them 60 seconds or less. The 319 videos the 12 channels posted in that year had a median of 1,714 views each (our count), and 79.6% ran 60 seconds or less (our count). Combined, the 12 channels had 40,958 subscribers (our count), fewer than many single detailing channels in the search sample.

3 of the 12 channels posted nothing in the year (our count): Take 5 Car Wash, Whistle Express and Super Star Car Wash. Only 1 of the 12 had any video among the 571 most-viewed search results (our count): Tommy's Express, with one conveyor clip at rank 91 for "car wash". Take 5 Car Wash's channel has 354 subscribers but more than 7 million total views on six videos, and Whistle Express has more than 16 million on two; YouTube view counts include views from ads, which can produce that pattern. We found each channel through a YouTube link on the organisation's own website where one existed, then handle lookups, then a YouTube channel search; the brand table lists the route for each. take5carwash.com now redirects to the Take 5 Oil Change site, and the IDA's website returned a bot check, so neither linked a channel we could read.

Do car wash chains put video on their location pages?

No. On November 3, 2026 we read 200 U.S. location pages of five car wash chains in a headless browser, 40 per chain, sampled at random from each chain's sitemap (our count), and 0.0% showed any video. None embedded a player (0.0%), ran a muted background video (0.0%), opened a click-to-play video (0.0%) or linked to a single video (0.0%). 39.5% linked to a YouTube channel, and every one of those pages showed no video itself (39.5% of all pages); 60.5% had neither a video nor a channel link. The chains' national homepages use video a little: 2 of the 5 showed one, a background video on Mister Car Wash's and a player on Tommy's Express's (our count).

A chain's location pages are filled from one brand template, so nearly every flag is all or nothing within a chain. The pooled shares mostly describe five brands' templates, not choices made at each wash. The pages were in 31 states (our count). Delta Sonic was not read because its robots.txt disallows AI crawlers.

40 pages read per chain on November 3, 2026 (our count). Whistle Express bought Driven Brands' U.S. car wash business, mostly Take 5 Car Wash sites, in a sale that closed in April 2025. Tommy's Express pages are franchise pages on the brand's site; 6 of its 40 sampled pages were coming-soon pages for washes not yet open. Cancellation wording counts text on the page, including collapsed FAQ answers, but not text inside pop-up panels. Per-page file: location-pages.csv (Zips and Whistle Express page addresses have the street part removed). In a hand-check of 24 random pages, 100.0% of flag values were right after the rules were fixed (our count).

What do car wash location pages show instead of video?

The membership offer, hours and links out. In the same November 3, 2026 read of 200 pages, 100.0% mentioned an unlimited wash club or membership plan and 96.0% showed a monthly membership price (we recorded only whether a price appeared, not the price). 96.5% showed opening hours and 100.0% linked to careers or jobs. 80.0% linked to the chain's mobile app; Quick Quack's pages mention its myQQ app in text but carry no app link. 36.5% said a membership can be cancelled anytime, online or in the app, all of them Quick Quack or Whistle Express pages (our count).

Photos and reviews are rare. 0.0% of pages showed a photo gallery of the wash, and 19.5% showed customer reviews or a star rating, all of them Quick Quack pages. Social links follow the template: 80.0% linked to Facebook and 80.0% to Instagram (every chain but Whistle Express), and 40.0% to TikTok (Mister Car Wash and Quick Quack only).

How many car washes are there in the U.S.?

The BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages counted an average of 19,840 private car wash establishments with employees in 2025, with 193,258 jobs and an average annual pay of $33,518 per job (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). The count covers businesses with staff on unemployment insurance, so owner-operators working alone and solo mobile detailers are not in it.

Detail shops are in the count. The Census Bureau's definition of industry 811192 Car Washes covers businesses mainly engaged in cleaning, washing or waxing vehicles, and its examples include automotive detail shops and mobile car and truck washes (U.S. Census Bureau). A wash run as a side line of a gas station or a dealer is counted in that business's main industry instead.

The number of establishments rose in both five-year periods. Jobs did not: BLS recorded a 10.6% drop in car wash employment from 2019 to 2020, the first year of the pandemic (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics), and jobs in 2020 were below the 2015 level. Pay figures are before inflation and mix part-time and full-time jobs.

Over the ten years from 2015 to 2025, establishments rose 35.6%, jobs 20.6% and average pay per job 69.5%, not adjusted for inflation; in 2025 the average establishment had 9.7 jobs (our calculations from BLS QCEW).

Census counts agree. County Business Patterns found 19,807 car wash establishments with paid employees in 2023, with 172,644 employees in mid-March and an annual payroll of $5,071,953 thousand (U.S. Census Bureau). 10,352 of those 19,807 establishments had fewer than five employees.

Census does not show the larger size classes separately for car washes in this table.

That puts 52.3% of employer car washes under five employees (our calculation).

How much money do U.S. car washes take in?

Car washes with paid employees took in $14,807,987 thousand, about $14.8 billion, in 2022, according to the Economic Census, which counted 19,422 establishments run by 15,613 firms (U.S. Census Bureau). In 2017 the same industry took in $9,723,877 thousand at 16,381 establishments (U.S. Census Bureau). Both figures are before inflation and leave out businesses with no employees.

Receipts rose 52.3% from 2017 to 2022, not adjusted for inflation, and the average establishment took in about $762,000 in 2022 (our calculations from the Economic Census).

What do car washes sell: tunnel washes, detailing or self-service?

Automatic washing and waxing brought in 56.1% of U.S. car wash receipts in 2022, and detailing 15.8%, according to the Economic Census product-line tables (U.S. Census Bureau). Washing and cleaning cars and light trucks in all forms made up 84.5% of receipts, and washing heavy trucks and buses 8.5% (U.S. Census Bureau). Census counts these lines only at car wash establishments with employees; detailing sold by dealers or body shops is not included.

Detailing is common even where it is not the main business: 8,921 car wash establishments, 45.9% of the industry, reported detailing receipts in 2022 (U.S. Census Bureau).

Automatic washing gained 5.1 percentage points of receipts from 2017 to 2022 while detailing lost 3.4 points; in dollars, automatic washing and waxing brought in about $8.3 billion in 2022 (our calculations).

How much of the car wash business do the big chains have?

The four largest car wash firms took 11.7% of U.S. car wash receipts in 2022, and the 50 largest 28.6%, according to the Economic Census (U.S. Census Bureau). Firms with 500 or more employees that operated all year took in $3,394,041 thousand (U.S. Census Bureau). Most car wash firms run a single site: 14,939 firms ran one car wash establishment, while 674 multiunit firms ran 4,483 (U.S. Census Bureau).

Firms with more than one site ran 23.1% of car wash establishments in 2022 and took 38.5% of receipts (our calculations from the Economic Census).

How many car wash and detailing businesses have no employees?

No agency publishes that count for car washes alone. Census Nonemployer Statistics stop at "other automotive repair and maintenance" (NAICS 81119), a group that also includes oil change shops and other repair: 97,480 businesses with no paid staff in 2023, with receipts of $4,747,809 thousand (U.S. Census Bureau). Many solo mobile detailers file here, but so do other one-person auto businesses, so the figure is an upper bound on no-staff car washes and detailers, not a count of them.

Who owns car wash businesses?

Census does not publish owner characteristics for car washes. The closest is the Annual Business Survey for all automotive repair and maintenance (NAICS 8111), which counted 140,867 employer firms in 2022, of which 10,512 were majority female-owned, 5,815 majority veteran-owned and 15,592 majority Hispanic-owned (U.S. Census Bureau). That group is mostly repair, body and oil change shops, so these are not car wash figures.

How many car washes do public registries count?

There is no national register of car washes, but New York City licenses every car wash premises, and on August 20, 2026 176 held an active licence from the city's Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP), by our count of DCWP's Issued Licenses file on NYC Open Data. The file lists 274 car wash licences of any status since the first were issued in December 2017. Of those, 64.2% were still active, 83 had expired, 13 had been surrendered and 2 were suspended (our count). One licence covers one premises, and a business with several sites holds several.

Brooklyn and Queens together held 64.8% of the city's active car wash licences (one active licence gave no borough). Most of the first licences came at once: 95 were first issued in 2018, the first full year of licensing, and 72.0% of the licences issued in 2017 or 2018 were still active in August 2026. New licences picked up again in 2024, when DCWP first issued 41, the most in any year since 2018, and 32.4% of the active licences date from 2024 to 2026 (our count). The licence runs two years, and every active one expires on October 31, 2027.

To get the licence, DCWP requires a $150,000 surety bond covering the licence period, or $30,000 for an applicant that is party to a collective bargaining agreement providing for timely payment of wages (NYC DCWP). Applicants also need liability insurance of at least $1,000,000 per occurrence and pay $550 for a full two-year term (NYC DCWP).

How many car washes are on OpenStreetMap?

On November 3, 2026, OpenStreetMap, the volunteer-built map, had 22,048 places tagged as car washes in the United States and 944 in Florida, 4.3% of the U.S. total (our count through an Overpass mirror). OpenStreetMap is incomplete and uneven from place to place, so these counts show what volunteers have mapped, not how many washes operate. A wash drawn both as a point and as a building outline can count twice.

Most mapped washes carry little detail. Nationally, 9.2% of mapped car washes had a website tag, 9.7% had opening hours and 12.3% had a brand. 17.8% were tagged as automated (machine or tunnel washes) and 10.1% as self-service; most carried neither tag. In Florida, 8.6% had a website tag, 9.1% had opening hours, 16.0% had a brand and 14.4% were tagged as automated (our count). The counts are published in nyc-dcwp-car-wash-licenses.csv and osm-car-washes.csv (aggregate counts only).

What do California's car wash registration fees and wage cases show?

California requires every business that washes, cleans, polishes or details vehicles with workers to register with the Labor Commissioner each year. The fee is $200.00 per branch location plus an annual assessment of $100.00 per branch, $300.00 in all (California Labor Commissioner). Self-service and automated washes whose staff only cashier or do maintenance are excluded. The register can only be searched one business at a time through a lookup form, so we did not count it.

Enforcement finds washes outside the system. In December 2024 the Labor Commissioner announced $1.3 million in citations for wage theft restitution and civil penalties against 19 car washes in the South Bay area of Los Angeles County and in Orange County, affecting 960 workers. $810,920 of the penalties fell on two washes that, among other violations, had not registered (California Labor Commissioner). Citations are assessments, not amounts collected.

How much do car wash workers make?

Cleaners of vehicles and equipment had a median wage of $35,830 a year, or $17.23 an hour, in May 2025, according to the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey of employers (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). The lowest-paid 10% earned less than $27,380 and the highest-paid 10% more than $47,610 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). Employers reported 380,430 wage-and-salary jobs in the occupation (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics).

The occupation is not car-wash-only. It also covers cleaners at car dealers, rental lots and truck and bus fleets, and car wash cashiers and managers are counted in other occupations. BLS does not publish a car wash cut of the occupation; the closest is "other automotive repair and maintenance" (NAICS 811190), which holds car washes, oil change shops and other repair, with 143,510 vehicle cleaners at a median of $32,670 a year in May 2025 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics).

Pay per job across the whole car wash industry, all occupations and part-time jobs included, averaged $33,518 in 2025 (BLS QCEW, above).

Will there be more car wash jobs?

BLS projects employment of cleaners of vehicles and equipment to grow 3.9% from 2025 to 2035, against 3.5% for all occupations (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). The occupation had 419.5 thousand jobs in 2025 counting the self-employed, and BLS expects 51.5 thousand openings a year over the decade, a figure that includes replacing workers who leave the occupation (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). 7.9% of these workers were self-employed in 2025 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics).

How dangerous is car wash work?

The BLS Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries counted 7 fatal work injuries in the car wash industry in 2024, three of them transportation incidents (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). The count was 11 in 2023 and 5 in 2022 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). Counts this small swing from year to year.

BLS does not publish a nonfatal injury rate for car washes. Employers in automotive repair and maintenance (NAICS 8111), the group that includes car washes, reported 1.9 injury and illness cases per 100 full-time workers in 2024, against 2.3 for all private industry (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). These rates come from employers' injury logs and are known to undercount.

How many car washes are there in Florida?

Florida averaged 1,628 private car wash establishments with employees in 2025, with 13,924 jobs and an average annual pay of $35,547 per job, according to the BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). Ten years earlier the state had 989 establishments, 12,202 jobs and average pay of $19,360 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). Pay is before inflation.

From 2015 to 2025, Florida's car wash establishments rose 64.6%, jobs 14.1% and average pay per job 83.6%, not adjusted for inflation. Florida had 8.2% of the nation's car wash establishments in 2025, and its average pay per job was 6.1% above the U.S. figure (our calculations from BLS QCEW).

Car washes are a bigger part of Florida's private workforce than of the nation's: the BLS employment location quotient for the industry was 1.13 in 2025, where 1.00 would mean the same share as the U.S. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics).

Census County Business Patterns counted 1,668 Florida car wash establishments with paid employees in 2023, with 12,138 employees in mid-March (U.S. Census Bureau); 977 of them had fewer than five employees (U.S. Census Bureau).

Florida's car washes with employees took in $1,065,606 thousand, about $1.07 billion, in 2022 at 1,667 establishments run by 1,372 firms, according to the Economic Census (U.S. Census Bureau). In 2017 they took in $542,434 thousand (U.S. Census Bureau).

Florida's car wash receipts rose 96.4% from 2017 to 2022, against 52.3% for the U.S., and Florida took 7.2% of U.S. car wash receipts in 2022 (our calculations from the Economic Census).

Census does not count Florida car washes without employees on their own. In the wider group of other automotive repair and maintenance (NAICS 81119), which also includes oil change shops and other repair, Florida had 13,758 businesses with no paid staff in 2023 (U.S. Census Bureau).

What do car wash workers earn in Florida?

Florida cleaners of vehicles and equipment had a median wage of $33,380 a year, or $16.05 an hour, in May 2025, according to the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). Florida employers reported 24,920 such jobs (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). The occupation also covers cleaners at dealers, rental lots and fleets.

In the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metro area, employers reported 6,880 vehicle and equipment cleaners in May 2025, at a median of $34,310 a year (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics).

How many locations do the big car wash chains run?

The largest public chain, Mister Car Wash, operated 548 car wash locations in 21 states at December 31, 2025, by its own count in its last annual report (Mister Car Wash 10-K). Of those, 485 were Express Exterior Locations, where drivers stay in the car through the tunnel and vacuum it themselves, and 63 were Interior Cleaning Locations, where staff also clean the inside (Mister Car Wash 10-K). Four years earlier it had 83 interior locations, so the full-service format is shrinking inside the chain while the express format grows (Mister Car Wash 2021 10-K). Driven Brands, which ran Take 5 Car Wash, reported 390 company-operated car wash stores at the end of 2022 (Driven Brands 2022 10-K) and 382 U.S. company-operated conveyor car wash sites at December 28, 2024, its last count before it sold the business (Driven Brands 2024 10-K). Zips Car Wash, which is privately held, told the bankruptcy court in February 2025 that it had grown to more than 260 locations across 23 states (Zips first-day declaration). All three are operators: they sell washes and memberships to drivers, and each figure is the company's own.

Mister's 548 locations equal 2.8% of the 19,840 car wash establishments with employees that BLS counted in 2025; the comparison is rough, because a company's year-end locations and an annual average of establishments are counted differently (our calculation).

How much of a car wash chain's revenue comes from unlimited memberships?

At Mister Car Wash, Unlimited Wash Club sales were 76% of total wash sales in 2025, up from 74% in 2024 (Mister Car Wash 10-K). The share was 30% in 2015 and 62% in the first quarter of 2021, according to its IPO prospectus (Mister Car Wash prospectus). Membership counts rose from 1,656 thousand at the end of 2021 (Mister Car Wash 2021 10-K) to 2,271 thousand at the end of 2025 (Mister Car Wash 10-K). Driven Brands reported the same pattern at Take 5 Car Wash: memberships were about half of its domestic car wash revenue in 2022 (Driven Brands 2022 10-K) and about 69% in 2024, up from about 60% in 2023 (Driven Brands 2024 10-K).

That is a rise of 46 percentage points in ten years, and Mister averaged about 4,144 members per location at the end of 2025 (our calculations from its filings).

Zips gave the court more detail on how a membership business works. It had about 625,000 Unlimited Wash Club members in February 2025 (Zips first-day declaration), paying $20 to $45 a month depending on the wash package (Zips first-day declaration). Members per site rose from about 1,080 in May 2020 to about 2,250 in June 2024 (Zips first-day declaration). Retail customers, by the company's description, wash four to six times a year and pay $12 to $30 a wash (Zips first-day declaration), and pay-per-wash sales were just under one-third of annual revenue (Zips first-day declaration).

Zips' members per site rose about 2.1 times between May 2020 and June 2024 (our calculation from its declaration).

How much more a member is worth depends on which page of Mister Car Wash's filing is read. The business section of its 2025 10-K estimates the average member spends more than four times what the average retail customer spends (Mister Car Wash 10-K); the risk factors of the same filing say approximately seven times (Mister Car Wash 10-K). The 2024 10-K risk factor said more than four times (Mister Car Wash 2024 10-K). Neither figure comes with a method. Mister Car Wash also names California's automatic renewal law, Business and Professions Code Sections 17601-17606, as rules it must follow when it bills members (Mister Car Wash 10-K).

What do car wash chains spend on advertising, and what do they say about digital marketing?

Mister Car Wash reported advertising costs of about $7,617 thousand in 2025, against $4,253 thousand in 2024 and $7,048 thousand in 2023 (Mister Car Wash 10-K), on net revenues of $1,051,731 thousand in 2025 (Mister Car Wash 10-K). In 2021 the advertising line was about $4,868 thousand (Mister Car Wash 2021 10-K). These are advertising costs only; the wider sales and marketing line also covers onsite collateral, promotional events, sponsorships and customer retention. The 2025 10-K describes the company's marketing only as "a mix of traditional and digital marketing tactics and channels", and none of its 2021, 2024 or 2025 10-Ks uses the word video. Zips told the court it launched the Zips App in 2024 to drive customer engagement and e-commerce, alongside a site refurbishment program (Zips first-day declaration).

Mister's 2025 advertising was about 0.72% of its net revenues (our calculation).

How many people do the car wash chains employ?

Mister Car Wash employed about 6,836 team members, front line and headquarters combined, at December 31, 2025 (Mister Car Wash 10-K). At the end of 2021, 6,140 of its roughly 6,750 U.S. staff worked at store level, against 275 at headquarters (Mister Car Wash 2021 10-K). Zips employed about 1,800 people, including some independent contractors, across its 260-plus sites (Zips first-day declaration), and says an express site needs only one to two onsite operators because the tunnel is almost entirely automated (Zips first-day declaration).

What happened to Take 5 Car Wash, Zips and Mister Car Wash between 2023 and 2026?

All three changed hands or restructured. Driven Brands bought aggressively at first: in 2021 alone it completed 38 car wash acquisitions covering 110 sites for $732 million in cash (Driven Brands 2023 10-K). In 2023 it wrote off all goodwill on the U.S. car wash business, $851 million (Driven Brands 2023 10-K), approved closing 29 stores and stopped opening new company-operated washes (Driven Brands 2023 10-K). In late 2024 it took a further $325 million impairment, citing softer demand, competition and weather (Driven Brands 2024 10-K). Its Car Wash segment, U.S. and international together, had net revenue of $587,237 thousand in 2024 (Driven Brands 2024 10-K).

Those 2021 deals cost about $6.65 million per site (our calculation).

In February 2025 Driven Brands agreed to sell the U.S. business to Express Wash Operations, LLC, which trades as Whistle Express Car Wash, for $385 million (Driven Brands press release). At closing on April 10, 2025, Whistle paid about $255 million in cash plus a $130 million seller note (Driven Brands press release); Driven Brands sold that note for $113 million in July 2025 (Driven Brands 2025 10-K). It then sold its European and Australian car wash business for $490 million on January 27, 2026, leaving it with no car washes (Driven Brands 2025 10-K). The sale filings do not give the number of sites Whistle took over.

Driven Brands sold the Whistle note at about 86.9% of its face value (our calculation).

Zips filed for Chapter 11 in the Northern District of Texas on February 5, 2025. Its chief transformation officer's sworn declaration puts revenue at $303 million for the prior twelve months (Zips first-day declaration), down from a peak of $345 million after a two-year buying spree (Zips first-day declaration), against about $653.9 million of funded debt (Zips first-day declaration). Just before filing it sold six Orlando sites to El Car Wash for about $58.5 million (Zips first-day declaration).

At filing, Zips' funded debt was about 2.2 times its revenue for the prior twelve months (our calculation).

Mister Car Wash kept growing, opening 29 newly built locations in 2025 (Mister Car Wash 10-K), then left the stock market. Affiliates of Leonard Green & Partners, already its controlling shareholder, agreed in February 2026 to buy the public shares for $7.00 each in cash (Mister Car Wash 8-K), and the merger closed on May 19, 2026 (Mister Car Wash 8-K). Its 2025 10-K and first-quarter 2026 10-Q are its last public reports.

Where do the chains' car wash industry numbers come from?

Mostly from the companies themselves, without a named source. Mister Car Wash's June 2021 IPO prospectus describes a $11 billion U.S. car wash industry (Mister Car Wash prospectus), says the automated segment is approximately 70% of the market (Mister Car Wash prospectus) and that cars in North America are washed two billion times a year (Mister Car Wash prospectus). None of these sentences cites anyone; the prospectus says its market data are management estimates built from industry reports, surveys, suppliers and trade bodies it does not name. Only two charts name a source. One credits the International Carwash Association, a trade body, for the share of consumers who most often choose a professional rather than a do-it-yourself wash, but its figures appear only in the chart image. The other credits the 2019 Industry Report of Professional Carwashing & Detailing, a trade magazine, for the claim that the top ten operators held less than 10% of the market (Mister Car Wash prospectus). On water, the prospectus estimates that a home wash uses more than three times the water of its wash, partly because it recycles an average of 33% of its water (Mister Car Wash prospectus). It gives a ratio, not the gallon figures that circulate online. The later 10-Ks drop the industry-size figures and call the industry "highly fragmented".

Who else reports car wash numbers to the SEC?

Landlords and lenders. Essential Properties Realty Trust, a net-lease REIT that rents buildings to operators, reports car washes as its largest tenant industry: 13.7% of annualized base rent across 220 properties at the end of 2025 (Essential Properties 10-K), up from 11.0% across 94 properties at the end of 2021 (Essential Properties 2021 10-K). Whistle Express Car Wash, the buyer of Take 5's U.S. sites, was its second-largest tenant with 33 properties (Essential Properties 10-K). Getty Realty, another net-lease REIT, bought 31 express tunnel car washes in 2024 and nine in 2025 (Getty Realty 10-K).

Essential Properties' car wash properties rose 2.3 times from the end of 2021 to the end of 2025 (our calculation).

Counting 10-K documents on EDGAR's full-text search shows the express membership model arriving in public filings only recently. The counts below are documents (a main 10-K or an exhibit), not companies, for filings made in each calendar year; in 2025 many of the "car wash" hits were business development companies listing loans to car wash chains.

Source: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, EDGAR full-text search, form type 10-K, queried November 3, 2026.

10-K documents containing "car wash" rose 3.0 times from 2015 to 2025 (our calculation).

How many U.S. drivers use a professional car wash?

Most of them, by the car wash industry's own count. In the International Carwash Association's 2019 U.S. Car Wash Consumer Study, 83% of Americans washed their vehicle at a professional wash at least once that year (ICA). The sample was 1,800 adults aged 18 or older who own or lease a vehicle, weighted to the U.S. census (ICA); ICA does not publish the field dates, and the full report is sold. ICA is the industry's trade body; its members run car washes or sell to them.

Fewer say a car wash is where they wash most often. In ICA's Pulse consumer survey completed in November 2024, 73% of past-year washers said they wash at a car wash most often, down modestly as home washing rose (ICA); the release gives no sample size. ICA's Industry Information page says the share of drivers who wash most often at a professional car wash rose from approximately 48% in 1994 to "nearly 80%" today (ICA), without naming the editions behind either figure. ICA also says its consumer study was first created in 1996 (ICA), two years after that baseline year.

The Pulse surveys count car wash customers, not all drivers. ICA's October 2023 Pulse was an online survey of 1,254 adults who own or lease a vehicle and used a car wash at least once in the past year, fielded August 1-3, 2023 (ICA). In ICA's mid-2022 survey of U.S. adults, 57% said they washed the same amount or more after gas prices spiked in March 2022 (ICA), and 86% expected to wash about the same or more in the next 30 days (ICA); that release gives no sample size or field dates.

Twenty years earlier the habit looked different. In ICA's 2003 "Car Love" survey of 1,000 U.S. car owners (ICA), 53 percent said they wash their cars less than once a month (ICA) and 16 percent said they never wash them (ICA). The release gives no field dates or survey firm.

How satisfied are car wash subscription members?

More satisfied than other customers, in ICA's surveys. In November 2024, 93% of subscription members in ICA's Pulse survey said they intend to renew, the highest level of 2024 (ICA), and member satisfaction closed the year at 83%, the highest since Pulse tracking began in 2021 (ICA). Among transactional (non-member) customers, only 30% were very satisfied with price, the lowest since early 2023 (ICA). These are stated intentions from an unpublished sample, not measured renewals.

Wash counts from payment platforms point the same way. AMP, which sells membership and payment software to car washes, reported wash volume up +9.4% year over year from Q4 2024 into Q1 2025 across the more than 7,000 locations on its network (AMP), followed by a modest pullback in Q2 2025. The figure covers only washes that use AMP.

How much water does a professional car wash use per car?

About 30 gallons of fresh water per car at conveyor (tunnel) washes, in the most recent field measurement. In a study for ICA, Chris Brown metered six conveyor and six in-bay automatic washes in Northern California for at least a week each between May 1 and November 1, 2017. Fresh water use averaged 30.0 gallons per vehicle at the conveyors (ICA water study) and 44.8 gallons at the in-bay automatics (ICA water study). Every site had a water reclaim system, and California has required reclaim at washes built since 2013, so these are efficient washes rather than a national average. The conveyors also reused 1.9 to 4.9 gallons of reclaimed water for every gallon of fresh water (ICA water study).

Not all of that water reaches the sewer. Evaporation and water carried out on the cars took 6.3 GPV, or 21.4% of fresh water, at the conveyors (ICA water study) and 8.7 GPV, or 20.6%, at the in-bay automatics (ICA water study).

The earlier baseline is ICA's 2002 study, which the 2018 report calls the first field study of professional car washes, unrepeated until 2017 (ICA water study). As summarized by EPA's WaterSense program, conveyors in the 2002 study averaged 34 gallons of fresh water per vehicle (EPA WaterSense), and in-bay automatics averaged 43.3 gpv in 2002 against 44.8 in 2018 (EPA WaterSense); ICA's own 2018 report gives 42.9 gallons for the same 2002 in-bay average, so the two summaries disagree. In-bay results varied widely: a 2006 report for the California Urban Water Conservation Council gives the 2002 in-bay mean as 43gpv with a standard deviation of 26 gallons, and the conveyor mean as 34 with a standard deviation of 15 (CUWCC). Without reclaim, manufacturers estimated that conveyors use 65.8 gpv of fresh water with friction washing and 85.3 gallons with touch-free washing (EPA WaterSense); these are estimates, not meter readings. EPA puts self-service bays lowest at 15.0 gpv on average (EPA WaterSense), and says ICA's studies show reclaim systems cut fresh water use by 50% to as much as 83 percent (EPA WaterSense).

For scale, ICA's 2002 market study, as cited in the 2006 California report, counted an annual average of 82,019 vehicles washed at conveyor washes, 54,184 at in-bay automatics and 92,093 at self-service washes (CUWCC).

How much water does washing a car at home use?

The widely quoted home-wash figures we traced are calculations or industry statements, not measurements. Maryland's Department of the Environment says a standard garden hose runs about 10 gallons a minute, so a 10-minute wash uses 100 gallons (Maryland MDE); that is flow rate times time, not a measurement. In 2012 a car wash industry spokesman cited figures to PolitiFact of 37 to 40 gallons per car at a car wash against 80 and 100 gallons in the driveway (PolitiFact), and the same article quotes 116 gallons from Massachusetts' environment agency, sourced to a regional car wash association.

The only measured home wash we found is one journalists' test. In 2012 PolitiFact Rhode Island washed a pickup truck with a bucket and a hose nozzle and used 11 gallons (PolitiFact), and it rated a state legislator's claim that home washing uses 80 percent more water than a car wash "Pants On Fire". One truck is not a sample; what the test shows is that home-wash water use depends on how long the hose runs.

What water limits apply to car washes?

Most are voluntary caps of 35 to 50 gallons of fresh water per car. ICA's WaterSavers recognition program required conveyor and in-bay washes to average no more than 40 gallons of fresh water per car (ICA WaterSavers, 2013 archive) and self-serve nozzles to use less than 3 gallons a minute (ICA WaterSavers). The program's own website now serves an unrelated site, so the criteria survive only in Internet Archive captures. EPA's WaterSense guidance recommends ceilings of 35.0 gallons for conveyor retrofits and 40.0 gallons for in-bay automatics (EPA WaterSense). Utility certification programs have typically set limits of 40 to 50 gallons per vehicle (CUWCC), and El Paso, Texas requires car washes built after June 2002 to use no more than 50 gpv (CUWCC). The 2017 conveyor average of 30.0 gallons sits under all of these limits.

How many vehicles and car wash sites are there in the U.S.?

There were 297,525,836 registered motor vehicles in the United States in 2024, according to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA MV-1), of which 97,413,321 were automobiles (FHWA MV-1) and most of the rest trucks, a category that includes pickups, SUVs and vans. Florida had 19,696,080 (FHWA MV-1). FHWA's 2023 total was 284,614,269 (FHWA MV-1), but FHWA switched from estimated to state-reported data for 2024, so the two years are not directly comparable.

The fleet is old. S&P Global Mobility, which sells vehicle data to the auto aftermarket, put the average age of U.S. light vehicles at 12.8 years in 2024 (S&P Global Mobility), with passenger cars at 14.5 years and light trucks at 11.9 (S&P Global Mobility), across 289 million light vehicles in operation (S&P Global Mobility).

ICA's counts of car wash sites run well above government counts of car wash businesses with employees, because many washes sit inside gas stations or run without staff. A third-party study ICA commissioned in 2020 estimated approximately 17,500 conveyor washes (ICA), 29,000 in-bay automatics (ICA) and 16,250 self-service washes (ICA); ICA does not name the firm or its method. ICA says about 200 companies run ten or more tunnel washes, totaling more than 6,000 locations, while about 3,000 run one or two (ICA), that new construction exceeds 500 stores a year (ICA), and that retail car washes employ more than 220,000 full- and part-time workers (ICA). It estimates car wash retail sales at approximately $15B a year across North America (ICA), an undated figure with no stated method.

Does the FTC's click-to-cancel rule apply to car wash memberships?

No. The Federal Trade Commission's amended Negative Option Rule took effect on January 14, 2025 but was vacated in July 2025, before its cancellation rules bound anyone. It would have covered subscriptions sold in any medium, including memberships sold at a car wash pay station (FTC, 89 FR 90476). Sellers had until May 14, 2025 to meet its disclosure, consent and simple-cancellation sections, a date the FTC later pushed to July 14, 2025 (FTC, 91 FR 12318).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit vacated the whole rule in an opinion filed on July 8, 2025 (Custom Communications v. FTC). The court held that the FTC skipped the preliminary regulatory analysis required when a rule's yearly effect on the economy reaches $100 million; the FTC's own administrative law judge had found the rule would cross that line unless each business needed fewer than 23 hours of professional help to comply (8th Cir.). The FTC took the vacated text out of the Code of Federal Regulations effective February 12, 2026, restoring the rule as it stood before 2024 (FTC, 91 FR 6507). It then asked for comments on a new rule, with a deadline of April 13, 2026 (FTC, 91 FR 12318). No proposed rule text had been published by November 3, 2026.

Car washes came up by name in the 2024 record. The International Carwash Association, a trade body, told the FTC that many of its 60,000 U.S. members sell wash subscriptions in person, online, by app or at an automated pay station, and asked that sellers without an online presence not be forced to offer online cancellation (FTC, 89 FR 90476). The FTC used gym memberships as its proxy for in-person sign-ups, projecting 15.55 million gym cancellations in the rule's tenth year, and said leaving out car washes, lawn care and pest control may understate the count (FTC). The FTC's complaint numbers cover all industries: negative option complaints rose from at least 33 a day in late 2020 to more than 90 per day in 2025, and since January 2025 the agency had brought five cases on the issue (FTC, 91 FR 12318).

Which state automatic-renewal laws cover car wash memberships?

With the federal rule gone, state laws set the terms. California's amended automatic renewal law applies to contracts entered into, amended or extended on or after July 1, 2025 (Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code 17602). New York's General Business Law 527-a was last revised on November 7, 2025 (N.Y. GBL 527-a). Neither statute names car washes; both cover any business that sells auto-renewing plans to their residents. Florida's law reaches only service contracts with a term of 12 months or more that renew for more than a month, so a month-to-month wash club falls outside its notice rule (our reading of the statute) (Fla. Stat. 501.165). We found no state law written for car wash subscriptions alone.

Sources: California Bus. & Prof. Code 17602, New York GBL 527-a and Florida Statutes 501.165.

California also makes a business that gets a cancellation voicemail process it or call back within one business day, and keep proof of the customer's consent for at least three years, or one year after the contract ends if that is longer (BPC 17602). In New York, a business that charges a higher renewal price without fresh consent must let the customer cancel for at least fourteen days after the charge and refund the rest of the term pro rata (GBL 527-a).

What do California and New York City require of car wash employers?

Both require a $150,000 surety bond to protect workers' wages. California's car wash law, Part 8.5 of the Labor Code, has required every car washing and polishing employer to register with the Labor Commissioner each year since January 1, 2004 (Cal. Labor Code 2054). The state will not register or renew an employer until it files the bond, unless it is covered by a collective bargaining agreement that sets wages, hours, conditions and a wage-dispute process (Cal. Labor Code 2055). Each branch location pays a registration fee set by the Labor Commissioner plus an annual fee equal to 20 percent of it, which goes to the Car Wash Worker Restitution Fund (Cal. Labor Code 2059). The registration fee cannot rise unless the program's fund balance is projected to fall below 25 percent of annual spending (Labor Code 2059).

New York City's licensing agency asks car washes for a bond of $150,000 covering the license period (NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection). The bond drops to $30,000 for a car wash under a collective bargaining agreement that provides timely wage payment and quick wage-dispute resolution, or under a qualifying government settlement (NYC DCWP). The tiers turn on labor arrangements, not on the number of workers.

Which states and cities require new car washes to recycle water?

California has required new in-bay and conveyor car washes to reuse at least 60 percent of their wash and rinse water since 2014 (AB 2230, Water Code 10951). The rule covers washes permitted and constructed after January 1, 2014, exempts self-service washes, and lets cities and counties set higher levels. The bill became law as Chapter 545 of the Statutes of 2012 (California Legislative Counsel).

Sources: California AB 2230, Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District and City of Killeen.

The Georgia rule is a model ordinance that local governments in the metro Atlanta water district adopt by ordinance, development code or condition of water service (MNGWPD). Killeen is one Texas city; we found no statewide recycling percentage in Texas. We did not find a Las Vegas Valley Water District or Arizona city rule on a page we could cite; Clark County's code sits on a code-hosting site that disallows AI crawlers.

How do EPA's water figures and recommended limits compare by wash type?

EPA's WaterSense program puts the average conveyor car wash at 30.0 gallons of fresh water per vehicle in a 2018 study, down from 34 gallons in a 2002 study (EPA WaterSense). Both studies were prepared for the International Carwash Association, a trade body, so the underlying measurements are industry-funded. EPA's guidance is voluntary; it sets no federal limit.

Source: EPA, WaterSense at Work, Section 5.4 Vehicle Washes (November 2023).

The figure behind the common home-washing comparison comes from arithmetic, not a measurement. Maryland's Department of the Environment says a garden hose runs about 10 gallons a minute, so a 10-minute wash uses 100 gallons, and a shutoff nozzle can save up to 70 gallons of that (Maryland Department of the Environment).

How does Florida regulate car wash wastewater?

Florida's Department of Environmental Protection runs a general permit for car wash systems, last amended in 1996, under which wand and rollover washes must run a total recycle system for both wash and rinse water, with no discharge to state waters (Fla. Admin. Code 62-660.803). A tunnel wash that keeps its wash water separate and recycles it may send excess rinse water, and only rinse water, to an absorption field, up to 2000 gallons per day (FDEP rule). A car wash the rule defines as residential, discharging 4000 gallons or less of wastewater a week, is exempt from the permit if it meets setback and best-practice conditions (FDEP rule). Washes that fit neither path need an individual industrial wastewater permit or a hookup to a domestic wastewater plant.

Did California's drought rules restrict home car washing?

Yes. In 2016 California's drought emergency regulation, as readopted in May of that year, barred washing a motor vehicle with a potable-water hose unless the hose had a shut-off nozzle (State Water Resources Control Board, 23 CCR 864). Breaking the rule was an infraction with a fine of up to $500 for each day (SWRCB). The prohibitions target end users of water; the regulation's text does not mention commercial car washes.

Do Florida and New York charge sales tax on car washes?

In Florida, a plain wash with only detergent or water softener is exempt from sales tax, but the whole charge becomes taxable once wax, silicones or another protective coating is added (Fla. Admin. Code 12A-1.006). A car wash that cannot document which washes were plain is presumed to owe tax on all of them, and coin-operated washes compute tax at an effective rate of 6.59 percent (Fla. Admin. Code 12A-1.006).

New York taxes car wash services whenever staff wash, wax or vacuum the car or help, under a bulletin issued September 23, 2010 (New York Department of Taxation and Finance, TB-ST-105). Fully coin-operated washes are exempt, but where the machine also takes cards or an activation code, only the coin, currency, or token sales are exempt (NYS DTF).

What do the popular car wash numbers really say?

Most do not hold up. Of six numbers that car wash chains, software sellers and statistics roundups repeat, traced in November 2026, only the professional-wash water figures rest on a measurement (ICA's, in 2017). The home-wash gallons, the "48% in 1994" share, the 80% video lift, the 160,000 car washes, the $5.8 billion and the 13 washes a year do not hold up as written.

"Washing at home uses 80 to 140 gallons; a professional car wash uses 30 to 45"

Only the professional half was measured. In 2017 the International Carwash Association (ICA), the industry's trade body, paid Chris Brown Consulting to meter six conveyor and six in-bay car washes in Northern California for at least a week each (ICA 2018 study). Conveyors averaged 30.0 gallons of fresh water per vehicle (ICA 2018 study) and in-bay automatics 44.8 gallons (ICA 2018 study). That is fresh water only: every site also reused water from reclaim tanks. The report calls ICA's 2002 study, also by Brown, the first field study of professional washes (ICA 2018 study); in it conveyors used 34.0 gallons of fresh water (ICA 2018 study) and in-bay washes 42.9 (ICA 2018 study). Counting reclaimed water, Maryland's environment department credits the 2002 study with 66-85 gallons per car at conveyors (Maryland MDE).

No home washes were measured in either study. ICA's own home figures have moved with each campaign. In 2003 its consumer site said professional washes use 32 gallons (ICA, archived) and a home wash up to twice that amount (ICA, archived), about 64 gallons (our calculation), while "some studies" put driveway washing at up to 10 times more (ICA, archived). In 2011 its WaterSavers site said a driveway wash can use 60 gallons or more in five minutes (ICA WaterSavers, archived), and its FAQ compared its 40-gallon member limit (ICA WaterSavers, archived) with the 63 gallons a garden hose delivers in five minutes, crediting the University of Idaho (ICA WaterSavers, archived). Those are hose flow rates, not measured washes. Maryland makes the same kind of estimate: a hose at about 10 gallons a minute uses 100 gallons in a 10-minute wash (Maryland MDE), and its table assumes a 15-minute wash (Maryland MDE).

The bigger numbers are older guesses that grew. A regional trade group's 2002 drought appeal said "studies show" up to 150 gallons in a 10-minute home wash (Southeastern Car Wash Association). The 116 gallons that Massachusetts later printed first appears, in what we found, as a City of Toronto estimate quoted in Stormwater magazine in 2002 (Stormwater, via p2infohouse, archived). The earliest "80 to 140" we found is an August 2009 press release from Splash Car Wash, a Connecticut and New York chain, which says home washing "requires" between 80 and 140 gallons and names no study (Splash Car Wash). When PolitiFact checked a Rhode Island lawmaker's version in 2012, an industry witness had told legislators a driveway wash can use 140 gallons (PolitiFact); PolitiFact found the Massachusetts figure of 116 gallons rested on industry numbers (PolitiFact), then washed a pickup with a bucket and a nozzled hose using 11 gallons (PolitiFact), and said doubling its rinse time would still total 20 gallons (PolitiFact). That is one test, not a sample. Use instead: "In ICA's 2017 measurements at 12 Northern California car washes, conveyors used 30 gallons of fresh water per car and in-bay automatics 45"; for home washing, say no study has measured it and that a garden hose runs at about 10 gallons a minute.

"Professional car wash use rose from 48% of drivers in 1994 to nearly 80% today"

The start year and the starting number look wrong in ICA's own wording. ICA's industry page says the share of U.S. drivers who most often wash at a professional car wash rose from about 48% in 1994 to "nearly 80% today", with no sample or year for today (ICA). Yet ICA says its consumer study was first created in 1996 (ICA), and the wave-by-wave series that Sonny's, a tunnel equipment maker, showed operators in 2015 puts HOME washing, not professional, at 47.6% in 1996 (Sonny's, citing ICA). The same series has 44.5% in 1999, a wave a 2002 Stormwater article also reports as 44.5% of Americans preferring home washing (Stormwater, archived), and 28.4% in 2014 (Sonny's, citing ICA). Sonny's slide also says 19.2% more consumers used a professional wash in 2014 than in 1996 (Sonny's, citing ICA), which matches a fall in the home share from 47.6% to 28.4%. So in 1996 about half of drivers already washed professionally most often, and the "nearly 72%" quoted for 2014 is what the 28.4% home share leaves (our calculation).

The newest wave ICA describes is 2019: 1,800 vehicle owners aged 18 and over, weighted to the Census (ICA), of whom 83% washed at a professional wash at least once that year (ICA). That counts any use, not the wash used most often, and ICA publishes no field dates; the full report is sold. Repeaters blend the two questions. A car blog gives "more than 77% in 2019" for most-often use (Motor & Wheels), a figure we could not find at ICA. A car wash app, NovoWash, swaps the 1996 numbers, writing that home washing fell from 52.4% and professional use rose from 47.6% to 77% by 2014 (NovoWash). Use instead: "In ICA's 2014 consumer study, 28.4% of drivers said they washed at home most often, down from 47.6% in 1996 (ICA, as reported by Sonny's)", or ICA's own 2019 figure with its wording: 83% of 1,800 vehicle owners used a professional wash at least once that year.

"Video lifts conversions 80%"

It comes from one vendor's test on one client's page in 2009, not from a car wash. EyeView, which sold landing-page video, reported in November 2009 that its first test, on the online tutor TutorVista's landing page, lifted conversion by over 80 percent (EyeView, archived); its case study gives the measured result as 86 percent for an autoplaying video shown to first-time visitors, with no sample size (EyeView, archived). Its 2010 white paper says the boost was over 80% only "in some cases" (EyeView, archived), and the one other test it fully describes, for a trading platform, found almost 32 percent (EyeView, archived). In August 2010 Unbounce, a landing-page software seller, turned it into a general rule: video on landing pages "can increase conversion by 80%" (Unbounce, archived). A video production company now tells car wash and detailing businesses that video can lift landing page conversions "up to 80%" (Beverly Boy Productions), and on a second page by a flat 80% (Beverly Boy Productions). Use instead: we found no published test of video on car wash or detailing sign-ups; if the figure is used at all, call it "one 2009 vendor test on a tutoring site".

"There are 160,000 car washes and 700,000 car wash workers in the U.S."

Neither has a counter behind it, and the government count of car washes is far lower. A car blog's statistics page says there were over 160,000 car wash facilities in 2019 (Motor & Wheels) and that the industry employs over 700,000 people (Motor & Wheels); its listed sources name no survey. The Census Bureau's County Business Patterns counted 16,976 car washes with paid employees in 2019 (U.S. Census Bureau), with 163,178 workers (U.S. Census Bureau): the 160,000 is closer to the worker count than to any count of sites. Census does not publish car washes without employees separately. ICA's estimate including unstaffed sites, from a 2020 study it commissioned without naming the author, is about 17,500 conveyors, 29,000 in-bay automatics and 16,250 self-service washes (ICA), and ICA puts retail car wash employment at more than 220,000 (ICA), with no year given. Use instead: "Census counted 16,976 U.S. car washes with paid employees and 163,178 workers in 2019"; give ICA's three type counts, about 62,750 sites in all (our sum), as a trade-body estimate.

"Americans spend $5.8 billion a year at car washes, per the Census Bureau"

We found no Census figure of $5.8 billion for car washes, and Census's own number for 2017 is far higher. A car blog says Americans spend USD 5.8 billion a year at car washes with no year or source (Motor & Wheels), and NovoWash credits $5.8 billion to the Census Bureau (NovoWash). Census's 2021 story on car washes reports $9.7 billion of total car wash sales in the 2017 Economic Census, counting employer businesses only (U.S. Census Bureau). The "$15 billion industry" that also circulates is ICA's unattributed estimate of $15B in car wash retail sales for all of North America, not the U.S. (ICA). Use instead: "U.S. car washes with employees had $9.7 billion in sales in 2017 (Census, Economic Census)", and newer Census data where available.

"The average American washes a car 13 times a year"

No survey we found measured 13 washes a year. The figure appears without a source on a car blog: Americans get their cars washed approximately 13 times per year (Motor & Wheels). The nearest published survey points the other way. In ICA's 2003 "car love" survey of 1,000 U.S. car owners (ICA), 53 percent washed their cars less than once a month and 16 percent never did (ICA); ICA's own fact page printed the same survey as 52% and 15% (ICA, archived). The survey's field dates were not published. Use instead: a dated survey result with its question, such as "In ICA's 2003 survey of 1,000 car owners, 53% washed their cars less than once a month".

Every popular claim our research pages trace, 701 in all, is on one page: popular video statistics, fact-checked.

How we built this page

We started from the questions people search for about car wash video statistics and looked for the organization that actually produced each answer. Every figure on this page sits in an evidence ledger with its source, the exact table or paragraph it came from, the measurement period, the population measured, and the date we checked it. This edition holds 486 figures from 43 publishers.

On November 3, 2026, each sourced figure on this page was re-fetched with the fetch cache cleared and matched against the recorded wording: BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages open data, occupation wage estimates (through the BLS data API), Employment Projections, injury rates and the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries; Census County Business Patterns, Nonemployer Statistics, the 2017 and 2022 Economic Census and the Annual Business Survey (through the Census data API) and the NAICS definition; the filings of Mister Car Wash, Driven Brands, Essential Properties and Getty Realty, Zips Car Wash's sworn first-day declaration in its Chapter 11 case, and EDGAR full-text search; FHWA's Highway Statistics; the International Carwash Association's consumer surveys, water studies and fact pages, S&P Global Mobility, YouTube, Google, BrightLocal, Welcomemat and Rinsed; the FTC's Negative Option rule in the Federal Register and the Eighth Circuit's opinion, EPA WaterSense, the automatic-renewal, car wash worker, water and tax laws and rules of California, New York, Florida, Georgia's metro water district, Maryland and Killeen, Texas; and the pages behind each popular claim. Where a site refuses automated requests we read an Internet Archive copy. Our licence counts come from New York City's open data, our OpenStreetMap counts from an Overpass mirror, our location-page figures from pages we read in a headless browser, and our YouTube figures from the YouTube Data API, all on the same day. We left out the International Detailing Association's website, Professional Carwashing & Detailing, Sonny's, Yelp, TikTok and several news sites (their robots.txt blocks AI agents), the Labor Department's wage-case data (now behind an API key) and EPA's ECHO facility data (robots.txt), and surveys that publish no field dates.

We only cite the producer: government agencies, regulators, company filings and official posts, and the survey owner's own report. We do not cite statistics roundups, Statista-style aggregators, or salary sites without a public method. We did not bypass paywalls or sign-up forms; where a full report was gated, we used only the figures its publisher states publicly.

Figures marked "our calculation" are arithmetic on the cited numbers, and anyone can reproduce them:

This edition contains no Mark Studios customer data.

Limitations

• Our YouTube read follows YouTube's ranking. The 571 videos are what YouTube's search returned for three queries sorted by views on one day, worldwide, not a census of car wash video; counts are snapshots and include views from ads. 'Car wash' is a children's search, so its results are dominated by nursery-rhyme and toy channels. We classified channels by hand, and 71 videos rest on thin channel descriptions.
• Location pages are templated. Within a chain most features are set by the brand's template, so our location-page shares describe five chains' templates, not what independent washes choose.
• Federal codes are broader than car washes. NAICS 811192 includes detail shops; the occupation 53-7061 covers vehicle and equipment cleaners in every industry; Census publishes nonemployer counts only for NAICS 81119 (which adds other automotive repair) and owner characteristics only for automotive repair as a whole (8111).
• Our counts cover what is mapped or licensed. OpenStreetMap is volunteer-mapped and incomplete, and New York City is the only place whose car wash licences we could count from open data.
• Trade-body and vendor figures come with limits. The International Carwash Association is the industry's trade body and publishes several of its Pulse surveys without a sample size; Rinsed and Welcomemat sell to car washes and report on their own clients; the water studies were paid for by ICA and metered 12 washes in Northern California.
• Most figures describe the U.S.; YouTube results are worldwide, and ICA's market-size estimate covers North America.

How to cite this page

For a single figure, cite the original publisher named next to it, and link here if the verification trail is useful to your readers. Each figure has its own anchor, so you can link straight to it, for example https://www.markstudios.com/research/car-wash-video-statistics#DRV-205. To cite the page as a whole:

Mark Studios. "Car Wash Video Statistics." Last verified Nov 3, 2026. https://www.markstudios.com/research/car-wash-video-statistics

@misc{markstudios_car_wash_video_statistics_2026,
  author = {{Mark Studios}},
  title = {{Car Wash Video Statistics}},
  year = {2026},
  month = nov,
  url = {https://www.markstudios.com/research/car-wash-video-statistics},
  note = {Last verified 2026-11-03}
}

Our calculations and the evidence table are free to reuse with attribution and a link to this page. Each underlying figure remains the claim of its original publisher, and some publishers ask for a link when their figures are reused.

Sources

Download the evidence table (CSV)

1. YouTube, Celebrating YouTube's auto detailing community (2026-09-06). Accessed 2026-11-03.
2. Welcomemat, Inside the Impact: What 2025 Taught Us About Car Wash Marketing Performance (2026-03-12). Accessed 2026-11-03.
3. Google, Manage your Business Profile photos & videos - Computer (undated (accessed 2026-11-03)). Accessed 2026-11-03.
4. Google, Getting started with Local Services Ads - United States (undated (accessed 2026-11-03)). Accessed 2026-11-03.
5. BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2023 (2023-02-07). Accessed 2026-11-03.
6. BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2026 (2026-02-11). Accessed 2026-11-03.
7. Rinsed, Rinsed Releases New Quarterly Car Wash Industry Report with Insights from Q3 2026 (2026-10-21). Accessed 2026-11-03.
8. Rinsed, Rinsed Launches New Quarterly Car Wash Industry Report with Insights from 2025Q4 (2026-01-26). Accessed 2026-11-03.
9. International Carwash Association, CAR WASH Pulse Q1 2026: Demand Remains Stable as Price Sensitivity and Market Saturation Shape Industry Outlook (2026-03-13). Accessed 2026-11-03.
10. NACS (reporting ICA survey data), ICA: What's Next for Car Wash? (2026-05-15). Accessed 2026-11-03.
11. International Carwash Association, Making Car Washes More Than Functional - Insights from CAR WASH Pulse (Preview) (2025-12-13). Accessed 2026-11-03.
12. International Carwash Association, Data That Pays: How Branded Chemistry Impacts Customer Behavior (2026-04-17). Accessed 2026-11-03.
13. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, QCEW Open Data: 2025 annual averages, industry 811192 (CSV) (2026-09). Accessed 2026-11-03.
14. U.S. Census Bureau, North American Industry Classification System: 811192 Car Washes (2022 NAICS search data) (2022). Accessed 2026-11-03.
15. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, QCEW Open Data: 2015 annual averages, industry 811192 (CSV) (2016-09). Accessed 2026-11-03.
16. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, QCEW Open Data: 2020 annual averages, industry 811192 (CSV) (2021-09). Accessed 2026-11-03.
17. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023, NAICS 811192 (Census Data API) (2025-06). Accessed 2026-11-03.
18. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023, NAICS 811192 by employment size (Census Data API) (2025-06). Accessed 2026-11-03.
19. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census, summary statistics, NAICS 811192 (Census Data API) (2025). Accessed 2026-11-03.
20. U.S. Census Bureau, 2017 Economic Census, summary statistics, NAICS 811192 (Census Data API) (2020). Accessed 2026-11-03.
21. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census, product lines by industry, NAICS 811192 (Census Data API) (2025). Accessed 2026-11-03.
22. U.S. Census Bureau, 2017 Economic Census, product lines by industry, NAICS 811192 (Census Data API) (2020). Accessed 2026-11-03.
23. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census, establishment and firm size (concentration), NAICS 811192 (Census Data API) (2025). Accessed 2026-11-03.
24. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census, establishment and firm size (firm employment size), NAICS 811192 (Census Data API) (2025). Accessed 2026-11-03.
25. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census, establishment and firm size (single unit and multiunit firms), NAICS 811192 (Census Data API) (2025). Accessed 2026-11-03.
26. U.S. Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics 2023, NAICS 81119 (Census Data API) (2025). Accessed 2026-11-03.
27. U.S. Census Bureau, Annual Business Survey 2023, company summary, NAICS 8111 (Census Data API) (2025). Accessed 2026-11-03.
28. U.S. Census Bureau, Annual Business Survey 2023, company summary, NAICS 8111 (Census Data API) (2025). Accessed 2026-11-03.
29. U.S. Census Bureau, Annual Business Survey 2023, company summary, NAICS 8111 (Census Data API) (2025). Accessed 2026-11-03.
30. New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP), Car Wash License Application Checklist - DCWP (undated). Accessed 2026-11-03.
31. California Department of Industrial Relations, Labor Commissioner's Office (DLSE), Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE) Car Wash Registration Instructions (undated). Accessed 2026-11-03.
32. California Department of Industrial Relations, Labor Commissioner's Office, Labor Commissioner cites 19 car washes in Los Angeles, Orange County for $1.3 million in wage theft violations and civil penalties (News release 2024-102) (2024-12-10). Accessed 2026-11-03.
33. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS series OEUN000000000000053706113 (BLS Public Data API v2) (2026-04). Accessed 2026-11-03.
34. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS series OEUN000000000000053706108 (BLS Public Data API v2) (2026-04). Accessed 2026-11-03.
35. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS series OEUN000000000000053706111 (BLS Public Data API v2) (2026-04). Accessed 2026-11-03.
36. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS series OEUN000000000000053706115 (BLS Public Data API v2) (2026-04). Accessed 2026-11-03.
37. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS series OEUN000000000000053706101 (BLS Public Data API v2) (2026-04). Accessed 2026-11-03.
38. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS series OEUN000000081119053706101 (BLS Public Data API v2) (2026-04). Accessed 2026-11-03.
39. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS series OEUN000000081119053706113 (BLS Public Data API v2) (2026-04). Accessed 2026-11-03.
40. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Table 1.2 Occupational projections, 2025-35, and worker characteristics, 2025 (2026-08). Accessed 2026-11-03.
41. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, TABLE A-1. Fatal occupational injuries by industry and event or exposure, all United States, 2024 (2026). Accessed 2026-11-03.
42. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, TABLE A-1. Fatal occupational injuries by industry and event or exposure, all United States, 2023 (2024-12). Accessed 2026-11-03.
43. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, TABLE A-1. Fatal occupational injuries by industry and event or exposure, all United States, 2022 (2023-12). Accessed 2026-11-03.
44. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, TABLE 1. Incidence rates of nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses by industry and case types, 2024 (2026-01). Accessed 2026-11-03.
45. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023, NAICS 811192, Florida (Census Data API) (2025-06). Accessed 2026-11-03.
46. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023, NAICS 811192 by employment size, Florida (Census Data API) (2025-06). Accessed 2026-11-03.
47. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census, summary statistics, NAICS 811192, Florida (Census Data API) (2025). Accessed 2026-11-03.
48. U.S. Census Bureau, 2017 Economic Census, summary statistics, NAICS 811192, Florida (Census Data API) (2020). Accessed 2026-11-03.
49. U.S. Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics 2023, NAICS 81119, Florida (Census Data API) (2025). Accessed 2026-11-03.
50. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS series OEUS120000000000053706113 (BLS Public Data API v2) (2026-04). Accessed 2026-11-03.
51. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS series OEUS120000000000053706108 (BLS Public Data API v2) (2026-04). Accessed 2026-11-03.
52. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS series OEUS120000000000053706101 (BLS Public Data API v2) (2026-04). Accessed 2026-11-03.
53. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS series OEUM003310000000053706101 (BLS Public Data API v2) (2026-04). Accessed 2026-11-03.
54. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS series OEUM003310000000053706113 (BLS Public Data API v2) (2026-04). Accessed 2026-11-03.
55. Mister Car Wash, Inc., Mister Car Wash, Inc. Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025 (2026-02-27). Accessed 2026-11-03.
56. Mister Car Wash, Inc., Mister Car Wash, Inc. Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2021 (2022-03-25). Accessed 2026-11-03.
57. Driven Brands Holdings Inc., Driven Brands Holdings Inc. Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2022 (2023-03-01). Accessed 2026-11-03.
58. Driven Brands Holdings Inc., Driven Brands Holdings Inc. Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 28, 2024 (2025-02-26). Accessed 2026-11-03.
59. Zips Car Wash, LLC (declaration of Kevin Nystrom, Chief Transformation Officer, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, N.D. Texas), Declaration of Kevin Nystrom, Chief Transformation Officer of Zips Car Wash, LLC, in Support of Chapter 11 Petitions and First Day Motions, Case No. 25-80069 (MVL), Doc 14, filed February 5, 2025 (2025-02-05). Accessed 2026-11-03.
60. Mister Car Wash, Inc., Mister Car Wash, Inc. prospectus (Form 424(b)(4)) for its initial public offering, dated June 24, 2021 (2021-06-28). Accessed 2026-11-03.
61. Mister Car Wash, Inc., Mister Car Wash, Inc. Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2024 (2025-02-21). Accessed 2026-11-03.
62. Driven Brands Holdings Inc., Driven Brands Holdings Inc. Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 30, 2023 (2024-02-28). Accessed 2026-11-03.
63. Driven Brands Holdings Inc., Driven Brands Holdings Inc. press release 'Driven Brands Announces Agreement to Divest U.S. Car Wash Business for $385 Million' (Exhibit 99.2 to Form 8-K filed February 25, 2025) (2025-02-25). Accessed 2026-11-03.
64. Driven Brands Holdings Inc., Driven Brands Holdings Inc. press release 'Driven Brands Announces Closing of Sale of U.S. Car Wash Business' (Exhibit 99.1 to Form 8-K filed April 16, 2025) (2025-04-16). Accessed 2026-11-03.
65. Driven Brands Holdings Inc., Driven Brands Holdings Inc. Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 27, 2025 (2026-05-19). Accessed 2026-11-03.
66. Mister Car Wash, Inc., Mister Car Wash, Inc. Form 8-K filed February 18, 2026 (Item 1.01, merger agreement) (2026-02-18). Accessed 2026-11-03.
67. Mister Car Wash, Inc., Mister Car Wash, Inc. Form 8-K filed May 19, 2026 (completion of merger) (2026-05-19). Accessed 2026-11-03.
68. Essential Properties Realty Trust, Inc., Essential Properties Realty Trust, Inc. Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025 (2026-02-11). Accessed 2026-11-03.
69. Essential Properties Realty Trust, Inc., Essential Properties Realty Trust, Inc. Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2021 (2022-02-16). Accessed 2026-11-03.
70. Getty Realty Corp., Getty Realty Corp. Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025 (2026-02-12). Accessed 2026-11-03.
71. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR full-text search), EDGAR full-text search: "express car wash", forms 10-K, filed 2015 (2026-11-03). Accessed 2026-11-03.
72. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR full-text search), EDGAR full-text search: "express car wash", forms 10-K, filed 2020 (2026-11-03). Accessed 2026-11-03.
73. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR full-text search), EDGAR full-text search: "express car wash", forms 10-K, filed 2025 (2026-11-03). Accessed 2026-11-03.
74. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR full-text search), EDGAR full-text search: "unlimited wash", forms 10-K, filed 2015 (2026-11-03). Accessed 2026-11-03.
75. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR full-text search), EDGAR full-text search: "unlimited wash", forms 10-K, filed 2020 (2026-11-03). Accessed 2026-11-03.
76. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR full-text search), EDGAR full-text search: "unlimited wash", forms 10-K, filed 2025 (2026-11-03). Accessed 2026-11-03.
77. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR full-text search), EDGAR full-text search: "car wash", forms 10-K, filed 2015 (2026-11-03). Accessed 2026-11-03.
78. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR full-text search), EDGAR full-text search: "car wash", forms 10-K, filed 2020 (2026-11-03). Accessed 2026-11-03.
79. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR full-text search), EDGAR full-text search: "car wash", forms 10-K, filed 2025 (2026-11-03). Accessed 2026-11-03.
80. International Carwash Association (ICA), ICA Releases U.S. Car Wash Consumer Study (2020-04-13). Accessed 2026-11-03.
81. International Carwash Association (ICA), The Pulse Report Q4 2024: Survey Results Reveal Record-breaking Highs and Lows in the Car Wash Industry (2024-12-17). Accessed 2026-11-03.
82. International Carwash Association (ICA), Industry Information (undated). Accessed 2026-11-03.
83. International Carwash Association (ICA), ICA Highlights Value of Customer Data in U.S. Car Wash Consumer Study (2020-07-21). Accessed 2026-11-03.
84. International Carwash Association (ICA), Consumer Trends Undergoing a Shift; International Carwash Association's Latest Consumer Pulse Research Provides Analysis, Summary of Trends (2023-10-06). Accessed 2026-11-03.
85. International Carwash Association (ICA), New Research: Consumer Demand for Car Washes Remains Strong (2022-08-22). Accessed 2026-11-03.
86. International Carwash Association (ICA), Car Love Reigns In America (ICA press release, carried by The Auto Channel) (2003-02-11). Accessed 2026-11-03.
87. AMP (car wash membership and payments software vendor), AMP Launches Industry Insights Report to Help Car Wash Operators Turn Data Into Growth (AMP release posted by ICA) (2025-07-15). Accessed 2026-11-03.
88. International Carwash Association (Chris Brown, Chris Brown Consulting), Water Use, Evaporation and Carryout in Professional Car Washes (2018 Car Wash Water Use Study) (2018). Accessed 2026-11-03.
89. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (WaterSense), WaterSense at Work: Best Management Practices for Commercial and Institutional Facilities, Section 5.4 Vehicle Washes (2023-11). Accessed 2026-11-03.
90. California Urban Water Conservation Council (Koeller and Company and Chris Brown Consulting), Evaluation of Potential Best Management Practices - Vehicle Wash Systems (2006-10). Accessed 2026-11-03.
91. Maryland Department of the Environment, Water Conservation and Washing Vehicles (undated). Accessed 2026-11-03.
92. PolitiFact (Poynter Institute), R.I. State Rep. Helio Melo says washing a car at home uses 80 percent more water than a car wash would use (2012-07-01). Accessed 2026-11-03.
93. International Carwash Association (ICA), WaterSavers Criteria (undated). Accessed 2026-11-03.
94. Federal Highway Administration (U.S. DOT), State Motor-Vehicle Registrations - 2024, Table MV-1, Highway Statistics 2024 (2026-01). Accessed 2026-11-03.
95. Federal Highway Administration (U.S. DOT), State Motor-Vehicle Registrations - 2023, Table MV-1, Highway Statistics 2023 (2025-04). Accessed 2026-11-03.
96. S&P Global Mobility, U.S. Vehicle Age Rises Again to 12.8 Years in 2025, According to S&P Global Mobility (2025-05-21). Accessed 2026-11-03.
97. Federal Trade Commission (Federal Register), Negative Option Rule (final rule, 89 FR 90476) (2024-11-15). Accessed 2026-11-03.
98. Federal Trade Commission (Federal Register), Rule Concerning the Use of Prenotification Negative Option Plans (advance notice of proposed rulemaking, 91 FR 12318) (2026-03-13). Accessed 2026-11-03.
99. U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, Custom Communications, Inc. v. Federal Trade Commission, No. 24-3137 (8th Cir. July 8, 2025) (per curiam) (2025-07-08). Accessed 2026-11-03.
100. Federal Trade Commission (Federal Register), Revision of the Negative Option Rule, Withdrawal of the CARS Rule, Removal of the Non-Compete Rule (final rule, 91 FR 6507) (2026-02-12). Accessed 2026-11-03.
101. California Legislature (Bus. & Prof. Code 17602), California Code, BPC 17602 (2025-01-01). Accessed 2026-11-03.
102. New York State Legislature (General Business Law 527-a), New York General Business Law Section 527-A: Unlawful practices (2025-11-07). Accessed 2026-11-03.
103. Florida Legislature (Florida Statutes 501.165), The 2026 Florida Statutes, 501.165 Automatic renewal of service contracts (2026). Accessed 2026-11-03.
104. California Legislature (Labor Code Part 8.5, Car Washes), California Code, LAB 2055 (2015-01-01). Accessed 2026-11-03.
105. California Legislature (Labor Code Part 8.5, Car Washes), California Code, LAB 2054 (2004-01-01). Accessed 2026-11-03.
106. California Legislature (Labor Code Part 8.5, Car Washes), California Code, LAB 2059 (2016-06-27). Accessed 2026-11-03.
107. California Legislature (Water Code 10950-10953, added by AB 2230), AB 2230 (Gatto), Recycled water: car washes, enrolled bill text (2012-08-27). Accessed 2026-11-03.
108. California Legislature (Legislative Counsel bill status), AB 2230 current bill status (2012-09-25). Accessed 2026-11-03.
109. Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District, Model Ordinance to Require New Car Washes to Recycle Water (2010-09-02). Accessed 2026-11-03.
110. City of Killeen, Texas, Ordinance No. 24-008 (amending Chapter 8, Plumbing Code) (2024-03-19). Accessed 2026-11-03.
111. Florida Department of Environmental Protection (rule text as published by Cornell LII), Fla. Admin. Code Ann. R. 62-660.803 - General Permit for Car Wash Systems (1996-12-24). Accessed 2026-11-03.
112. California State Water Resources Control Board (approved by the Office of Administrative Law), Notice of Approval of Emergency Regulatory Action, OAL Matter 2016-0520-01 (23 CCR 863-866) (2016-05-31). Accessed 2026-11-03.
113. Florida Department of Revenue (rule text as published by Cornell LII), Fla. Admin. Code Ann. R. 12A-1.006 - Repair of Tangible Personal Property (2021-08-15). Accessed 2026-11-03.
114. New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, Car Wash Services (Tax Bulletin ST-105, TB-ST-105) (2010-09-23). Accessed 2026-11-03.
115. International Carwash Association (trade body), carlove.org, Benefit #2: Pro Car Washes are More Environmentally Friendly (2003). Accessed 2026-11-03.
116. International Carwash Association (trade body), WaterSavers, Welcome to WaterSavers (2011). Accessed 2026-11-03.
117. International Carwash Association (trade body), WaterSavers, WaterSavers FAQ (2012). Accessed 2026-11-03.
118. Southeastern Car Wash Association (regional trade body), press release on The Auto Channel, Professional Car Washes Keep Cars Clean, Conserve Water (2002-06-10). Accessed 2026-11-03.
119. Stormwater magazine (May/June 2002), reprinted by the Southeastern Car Wash Association, Take Me Out to the Car Wash: Successful Residential and Community-Based Nonpoint-Source Pollution Prevention (in 'Water In the Car Wash: Operators Information', July 17, 2002) (2002-07-17). Accessed 2026-11-03.
120. Splash Car Wash (car wash chain; repeater), press release on The Auto Channel, Splash Car Wash Receives WaterSavers(TM) Certification for Water Conservation and Eco-Friendly Practices (2009-08-25). Accessed 2026-11-03.
121. International Carwash Association (trade body), Industry Information (Undated (read 2026-11-03)). Accessed 2026-11-03.
122. Sonny's The Carwash Factory (equipment seller), citing ICA; slides hosted on sambuz.com, Industry Overview: five year outlook (presented by Paul Fazio, CEO, Sonny's The Carwash Factory, October 2015) (2015-10). Accessed 2026-11-03.
123. Motor & Wheels (automotive blog; repeater), Car Wash Demographics (2023-01-02). Accessed 2026-11-03.
124. NovoWash (car wash app; repeater), Customers prefer professional carwashes! (2024-07-09). Accessed 2026-11-03.
125. EyeView Digital (landing-page video vendor), Another Video Conversion Success Story (2009-11-10). Accessed 2026-11-03.
126. EyeView Digital (landing-page video vendor), EyeView case study: TutorVista (2010-02). Accessed 2026-11-03.
127. EyeView Digital (landing-page video vendor), EyeView White Paper: Making Video Accountable (2010). Accessed 2026-11-03.
128. Unbounce (landing-page software vendor; repeater), The Benefits of Using Video on Landing Pages (2010-08). Accessed 2026-11-03.
129. Beverly Boy Productions (video producer; repeater), Video Production for the Car Wash & Auto Detailing Industry (2022-09-06). Accessed 2026-11-03.
130. Beverly Boy Productions (video producer; repeater), Video Production for Car Wash & Auto Detailing Businesses (2023-05-05). Accessed 2026-11-03.
131. U.S. Census Bureau, America's Love Affair With (Clean) Cars (2021-06-29). Accessed 2026-11-03.
132. International Carwash Association (trade body), carlove.org, International Carwash Association - Car Wash Facts (2003). Accessed 2026-11-03.

Update policy and change log

We re-verify every figure quarterly and when a major source publishes a new edition. The next scheduled review is February 2027. Corrections go to contact@markstudios.com.

• Nov 3, 2026: First published with 486 figures from 43 publishers, each checked against its original source.