Massage Therapy Video Statistics

Key takeaways

1. Massage therapists and massage businesses drew 4.3% of the views of YouTube's 481 most-viewed 'massage therapy', 'massage' and 'deep tissue massage' videos; ASMR and massage-experience creators drew 26.4%, and chiropractors, physiotherapists and other health professionals 33.4% (our read, Nov 2026). (Mark Studios) See details
2. Without one Montreal therapist’s channel, massage businesses drew 3.3% of those views; the ones that name a U.S. place drew 0.5%. (Mark Studios) See details
3. Videos of 60 seconds or less were 48.6% of that sample and drew 77.6% of its views. (Mark Studios) See details
4. The 14 massage franchisor, trade-body, booking-app and device-brand channels we read had 96,701 subscribers between them, but 0 had a video in the sample, and their videos of the past year drew a median of 155 views. (Mark Studios) See details
5. Of 204 location pages we read from six massage franchises, 0.0% had a video a visitor can play and 20.6% a muted background loop, while 100.0% linked Instagram and 100.0% offered online booking (Zenoti on 21.6%, the brand’s own system on the rest) (our read, Nov 2026). (Mark Studios) See details
6. BLS counts about 155,400 U.S. massage therapist jobs in 2025, 98,790 of them on employer payrolls; the self-employed held 35.6% of the jobs. (BLS) See details
7. The median wage and salary massage therapist earned $58,450 in May 2025, 14.7% above the median for all occupations; in Florida the median was $49,680. (BLS) See details
8. U.S. employer businesses reported $4.52 billion ($4,518,198,000) in massage service receipts in 2022, 69.2% of it therapeutic (our sum of two Economic Census product lines); the widely repeated $18 billion is IBISWorld’s 2018 market estimate, quoted in AMTA’s 2019 fact sheet. (U.S. Census Bureau; AMTA) See details
9. NCCIH’s analysis of the National Health Interview Survey found 10.9 percent of U.S. adults used massage therapy in 2022, up from 4.8 percent in 2002. (NCCIH) See details
10. Florida had 37,345 practicing massage therapist licences on November 4, 2026; Palm Beach, Broward and Martin counties held 17.9% of the licences we could match to a county (our count), and the state had 8,995 active massage establishment licences in fiscal year 2024-25. (Mark Studios; Florida Department of Health) See details
11. Massage Envy had 993 franchised outlets at the end of 2025, 8.3% fewer than at the start of 2023, while Hand and Stone grew to 600; packages and membership dues were 76.6% of the average Massage Envy franchisee’s sales. (Massage Envy and Hand and Stone franchise disclosure documents) See details
12. Florida requires 500 hours of massage training and bars massage establishments from operating between midnight and 5 a.m.; its health department received 727 complaints that a massage establishment broke the law requiring a human-trafficking reporting procedure in fiscal year 2024-25 and took 9 disciplinary actions. (Florida Legislature; Florida Department of Health) See details
13. The repeated “9,000 illicit massage businesses” is Polaris’s 2018 estimate, seeded from a sex-buyer review site, and its $2.5 billion revenue rests on assumed customers and prices; Heyrick Research put the count at over 11,000 in 2021. (Polaris; Heyrick Research) See details

Who makes YouTube's most-viewed massage videos?

Mostly not massage therapists. On November 4, 2026, massage therapists and massage businesses drew 4.3% of the views of YouTube's most-viewed videos for "massage therapy", "massage" and "deep tissue massage", while ASMR and massage-experience creators drew 26.4% and other health professionals, mostly chiropractors and physiotherapists, drew 33.4% (our count). Massage therapists and massage businesses posted 9.4% of the videos (our count).

The sample is YouTube's own ranking on one day, not a census of massage videos. We asked the YouTube Data API for videos matching each of the three searches, sorted by view count, with no country or language filter, and read 4 pages of 50 results for each: 600 results, which held 481 different videos from 257 channels. We then sorted every channel by hand into types from its title, its description and the titles of its videos in the sample, and for close calls from booking, address, clinic and licence wording in the video descriptions. A massage therapist or massage business is a channel that offers massage to customers: it invites bookings, gives a studio, clinic or spa with a place or contact, or is a named spa or studio chain. An ASMR or massage-experience creator films massage for relaxation or curiosity viewing, often in barbershops, spas and street stalls abroad. Health professionals are the channels' own descriptions: self-described chiropractors, physiotherapists, osteopaths, doctors and their clinics.

No channel was a children's channel. Massage professionals' own channels, massage businesses plus massage educators and schools, posted 22.5% of the 481 videos and drew 7.0% of the views; adding the other health professionals, the hands-on professions posted 41.2% of the videos and drew 40.4% of the views (our count). Some ASMR and teaching channels are run by working therapists: counting the massage businesses together with creators who say they work as massage therapists, masseurs or barber-masseurs filming in their own practice, 39 channels posted 72 videos (15.0%) and drew 10.7% of the views (our count). The 14 ASMR and educator channels of that kind alone drew 6.5% of the views (our count).

How many massage businesses reach YouTube's most-viewed massage videos, and how many are in the U.S.?

Few, and only a handful in the U.S. 25 of the 257 channels in the November 4, 2026 sample were massage therapists or massage businesses that offer massage to customers, and 5 of those named a U.S. place: a Houston massage therapist, a California bodywork specialist, a sports massage therapist in Columbia, South Carolina and Boulder, Colorado, a Twin Cities therapist and a Portland, Oregon day spa (our count). Those U.S. massage businesses posted 15 of the 481 videos (3.1%) and drew 0.5% of the views (our count).

One channel carries a quarter of the massage businesses' views: Andy Wellness, a Montreal massage therapist whose video descriptions carry a booking link, posted 4 of the 481 videos and drew 24.2% of all the views massage businesses drew (our count). Without that channel, massage therapists and massage businesses drew 3.3% of the views (our count). The others include spa chains in Bangkok, massage studios in Kyiv and Sofia, a cupping clinic, a Manchester cupping therapist, a Mumbai Ayurvedic centre and spas in Dubai and Ontario.

The evidence for some of these businesses is thin. 19 of the 45 massage-business videos came from channels whose only sign of a business is a practice-style name, a therapist with no place or booking line, a service menu or a web address (our count). Massage businesses post short clips: 62.2% of their 45 videos ran 60 seconds or less (our count). Their channels are small next to the rest of the sample: the median massage therapist or massage business channel had 19,200 subscribers, against 72,200 for massage educators, 266,500 for other health professionals and 324,000 for ASMR and massage-experience creators (our count).

Which channels carry the most views?

A few very large channels, led by a chiropractic short and a re-edited clip. The channel with the most views in the November 4, 2026 sample, SARWAN HEALTH CARE, an Indian chiropractic channel, drew 11.6% of all views with one 14-second short, 34.7% of the health professionals' views; without it, health professionals drew 24.7% of the views (our count). That short, a chiropractic hip and knee treatment, had 624.8 million views, 11.6% of the sample's views (our count). The second channel, AurEdits, a "fair use" edit channel, drew 10.8% of all views with one 15-second "head massage" edit, 71.5% of the media and repost views; without it, that type drew 4.8% of the views (our count).

The 5 channels with the most views drew 40.1% of all views and the top 10 drew 54.7%; the 10 most-viewed videos alone drew 42.9% (our count). Health professionals post short clips: 81.1% of their 90 videos ran 60 seconds or less, and 49 came from channels that list the United States as their country (our count).

Among ASMR and massage-experience creators, Alex FaBB, who films massages in barbershops abroad, posted 23 of the 481 videos and drew 7.0% of the views; without it, ASMR and massage-experience creators drew 20.9% of the views (our count). ASMR runs wider than that type: 52.0% of the 481 videos, 250 from 95 channels, were labelled ASMR in the video or channel text, and they drew 37.1% of the views (our count). Many are barber-masseurs in Turkey and India filming their own shops, and visitors filming street and spa massages in Vietnam, Thailand, India and Mexico.

Does the answer change with the search term?

Yes. Massage businesses do best on "deep tissue massage": they drew 20.2% of the views of its 200 most-viewed results on November 4, 2026, against 4.2% for "massage therapy" and 2.7% for "massage" (our count). Each search returned 200 results, but some videos appear twice in one list, so the lists hold 173, 196 and 198 different videos.

"Massage therapy" is the health professionals' search: they drew 54.9% of its views, and SARWAN HEALTH CARE alone 21.3% (our count). "Massage" is the ASMR search: ASMR and massage-experience creators posted 50.0% of its videos and drew 42.5% of its views (our count). "Deep tissue massage" is the only list whose top channel was a massage business: Andy Wellness alone drew 11.6% of its views, and without it massage businesses drew 9.7% of that list's views (our count). Videos of 60 seconds or less were 60.7%, 57.7% and 37.9% of the three lists. The lists overlap little: 77 of the 481 videos appear in two or more of them, and 9 in all three (our count).

How many views do the most-viewed massage videos get?

The median video in the November 4, 2026 sample had 2.8 million views; 88 of the 481 had 10 million or more and 8 had 100 million or more (our count). Together the 481 videos had 5.4 billion views (our count). The median video had 9.4 likes per 1,000 views (our count). View counts are YouTube's lifetime snapshots on the day of the read and include views from ads.

37.4% of the 481 videos came from channels that list the United States as their country, and they drew 31.9% of the views (our count), but a channel's country is whatever its owner set. 59 of the 257 channels had 1 million or more subscribers (our count). No video in the sample carried YouTube's uploader-declared altered or synthetic content flag, and none was set as made for kids: 0 of the 481 had either setting in the API on November 4, 2026 (our count).

Are the most-viewed massage videos short?

About half are, and the short ones carry most of the views. 48.6% of the 481 videos in the November 4, 2026 sample ran 60 seconds or less, and they drew 77.6% of the views (our count). The median video of 60 seconds or less had 4.9 million views, against 1.5 million for longer videos (our count). The median length was 61 seconds (our count).

Long relaxation sessions are the other big group: videos longer than 20 minutes, mostly full ASMR massage sessions and relaxation music, were 23.1% of the videos, 111 of them, and drew 7.5% of the views (our count).

Most are recent. 56.8% of the videos were published in 2024 or later, and they drew 75.4% of the views; 97 were published in the year before the search (our count). 100 were published in 2025 and 90 in 2026 up to November 4, against 19 in 2019 (our count).

How big are the YouTube channels of massage franchisors, trade bodies and apps?

Small, and none reached the most-viewed massage videos. The 14 organisation channels we could find and read on November 4, 2026, from massage franchisors, trade bodies, booking software, on-demand massage apps and massage device brands, had 96,701 subscribers between them, and 0 of them had a video in the search sample (our count). The 155 views were the median for the 290 videos they posted in the year to November 4, 2026, against 2.8 million for the median video in the search sample (our count).

Each channel is the one linked from the organisation's own website where there was a link, and otherwise the channel found by a handle lookup in the YouTube Data API. Massage Envy's and Hand & Stone's sites refused our robots.txt request, so their channels come from handle lookups. 3 of the 17 organisations checked, the franchisor Massage Heights, the booking platform Fresha and the Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards, had no channel that could be found (our count). 5 of the 14 channels read posted no video in the year: Massage Envy, LaVida Massage, Elements Massage, Zeel and Soothe (our count).

The franchisors are the quietest. The channels of Massage Envy, Hand & Stone, Elements Massage and LaVida Massage had 5,965 subscribers between them, and only Hand & Stone posted in the year: 38 videos with a median of 53 views (our count). Elements Massage's channel has 10,604,019 lifetime views over 56 public videos but posted none in the year (our count). The trade bodies post longer videos: 15.7% of the 70 videos AMTA, ABMP and NCBTMB posted in the year ran 60 seconds or less, against 84.2% of Hand & Stone's and 69.4% of the device brands' (our count).

Do massage franchise location pages use video?

Mostly not, and none offers a video to play. On November 4, 2026, 20.6% of the 204 U.S. location pages of six massage franchises and chains that we read showed any video, and every one of those was a muted background clip (our count). 0.0% embedded a video player a visitor can start and 0.0% embedded a YouTube video. The background clips are 20.6% of the pages: The NOW Massage plays the same short brand loop behind every boutique page, and two Spavia Day Spa pages, both for spas that have not opened yet, play one. We read a seeded random sample of up to 40 location pages per brand from the location pages each brand lists in its own sitemap, in a headless browser, one page at a time.

Video sits on one national homepage as well. 1 of the six brands' homepages showed a video, The NOW Massage's (our count). Everywhere else, video platforms appear only as links. 39.2% of the location pages linked to YouTube, all of them Elements Massage and Hand & Stone pages, and 39.2% linked to TikTok, all of them Hand & Stone and The NOW Massage pages. 100.0% linked to Instagram and 99.5% to Facebook (our count).

How do massage franchise location pages take bookings?

Every page read takes bookings online, and most send visitors to the brand's own booking pages. 100.0% of the pages offered online booking (our count, November 4, 2026). 21.6% named or embedded a third-party booking system, and that system was Zenoti on 21.6%: every Hand & Stone and Massage Green Spa page loads a Zenoti web store. The other 78.4% sent visitors to the brand's own booking pages: Elements Massage, MassageLuXe and The NOW Massage use booking addresses on their own domains, and Spavia uses a booking page under each spa's own page. 0 pages named or embedded Mindbody, Booker, Millennium, Meevo, Vagaro, Square, Fresha, Booksy, MassageBook, Boulevard, Book4Time or Mangomint for booking (our count). A page that loads a system shows which software the franchisor's template uses, not which one each location runs behind it.

The pages sell repeat visits. 100.0% used membership wording and 100.0% linked to or mentioned gift cards, mostly in the site menu. 61.8% advertised an introductory, first-visit or new-client offer; we recorded only whether an offer appeared, not its price (our count). Recruiting is on almost every page too: 98.0% linked to careers or jobs or carried hiring wording, usually a menu or footer link.

Shares are of the pages read per brand (our count, November 4, 2026). The counts in the first column are pages listed in each brand's sitemap, not open locations: among the pages drawn, Hand & Stone listed a corporate placeholder, a template test page and two pages that redirect to its locations list, and Elements Massage a franchise demo page. Those were replaced by the next pages in the seeded draw.

Do massage franchise location pages show licences?

Some do, mostly where state rules ask for it. 19.1% of the pages printed a state massage licence number; we recorded only whether a number appeared, never the number (our count, November 4, 2026). Florida pages print one most often. 28 of the pages read were Florida location pages, and 82.1% of those printed a Florida massage establishment licence number (an "MM" number). 40.2% of all pages said their therapists or staff are licensed, in wording such as "licensed massage therapists" or "licensed massage and skin care specialists"; on MassageLuXe pages that wording sits in a careers paragraph. 0.0% of the pages carried human-trafficking hotline wording (our count). This read covers web pages only, not what is posted inside a spa.

This is a read of six franchisors' templated pages, not of independent massage therapists. Each brand fills its location pages from one template, so most features are all or nothing within a brand, and pooled shares mostly describe six templates rather than choices made by local owners or therapists. The pages were in 33 U.S. states (our count). 6 of the 12 franchises and chains first considered could not be included: Massage Envy's site answered the robots.txt request with a bot-protection page, Massage Heights' sitemap answered with a bot challenge, LaVida Massage and Woodhouse Spas list no location pages in their sitemaps, and the Spa810 and Indo-Pak Massage Therapy sites did not connect. Each page was read once and every feature is a rule match on the rendered page. A hand-check of 30 randomly drawn pages agreed on 100.0% of flag values after the rule fixes listed in the method notes (our calculation). The read says nothing about the video these brands post on Instagram, TikTok or YouTube.

How many licensed massage therapists and massage establishments does Florida have?

Florida had 34,688 in-state active massage therapist licences at the end of fiscal year 2024-25 (June 30, 2025), plus 5,228 active licences held by people with an out-of-state address, by the Department of Health's own count (Florida DOH MQA Annual Report FY 2024-25). Counting inactive, delinquent, military and retired licences too, the total was 46,354. A year earlier the in-state active count was 32,981 (Florida DOH MQA Annual Report FY 2023-24), so it rose 5.2% in a year (our calculation). These are licences, not people at work.

The same reports counted 8,995 active massage establishment licences at the end of fiscal year 2024-25 (Florida DOH MQA), up from 8,291 a year earlier (Florida DOH MQA), a rise of 8.5% (our calculation). Massage establishments were 36.4% of all the health care facilities and establishments the Division of Medical Quality Assurance licenses, second only to pharmacies (Florida DOH MQA), and they took 9,599 of its inspections in fiscal year 2024-25 (Florida DOH MQA). Florida also had 209 board-approved massage schools (Florida DOH MQA).

New licences fell for both, and faster for businesses. In fiscal year 2024-25 the department received 2,722 initial massage therapist applications (Florida DOH MQA) and issued 2,167 initial massage therapist licences (Florida DOH MQA), against 2,399 issued the year before (Florida DOH MQA). It received 1,556 initial massage establishment applications (Florida DOH MQA) and issued 1,019 establishment licences (Florida DOH MQA), against 1,389 in fiscal year 2023-24 (Florida DOH MQA): 26.6% fewer (our calculation).

The department's public licence search gives a newer count. On Nov 4, 2026 it returned 37,345 massage therapist licences and 8,288 massage establishment licences in a practicing status (clear, military, obligations or probation) (our count). That is 4.5 practicing therapist licences per practicing establishment licence (our calculation), though therapists can also work where no establishment licence is needed. The search count is lower than the annual report's active total because it was taken on a different date and with the search's own status filter; the department's bulk data download needs a login, so it was not used.

How many massage therapists and massage establishments are licensed in Palm Beach, Broward and Martin counties?

Palm Beach, Broward and Martin counties together had 6,198 practicing massage therapist licences and 1,346 practicing massage establishment licences on Nov 4, 2026, by our count of the Florida Department of Health licence search. That is 17.9% of the state's county-matched therapist licences and 14.8% of its county-matched establishment licences (our calculation). Miami-Dade had the most therapist licences of any county, 5,028 (our count), with Broward second and Palm Beach third.

Counts are our tallies of the Florida Department of Health's public licence search, Nov 4, 2026, one query per county and licence type. The search's county filter is not documented: some licences matched to Martin County carry Jupiter, North Palm Beach or Port Saint Lucie mailing cities, so a licence can be counted in two counties, and county establishment totals add up to more than the state total. Shares are therefore taken against the sum of all 67 county totals. The full county table is in the public CSV for this page.

What did Florida's massage complaint counts show after the 2024 trafficking law?

In fiscal year 2024-25 Florida's Department of Health received 727 complaints against massage establishments that alleged a breach of the human trafficking procedure in section 480.043(13) of the Florida Statutes, and took 9 disciplinary actions under it (Florida DOH MQA Table 8B). Window visibility and signage drew 1,231 complaints against establishments, second only to the rule on keeping legible records of employees (Florida DOH MQA Table 8B). Complaints about the designated establishment manager rule numbered 282 and led to 32 disciplinary actions, the most of any provision for establishments (Florida DOH MQA Table 8B). The department added this table after House Bill 197 (2024); one complaint can allege several provisions, so the rows do not add up to a number of complaints, and cases closed because the business fixed a deficiency at inspection do not reach the probable cause or discipline columns.

How many massage therapists are licensed in Texas, New York and other states with open licence data?

Texas reported 33,224 licensed massage therapists and 3,449 licensed massage establishments in fiscal year 2025, by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation's own fact sheet (TDLR Massage Therapy at a Glance). New York had 12,981 registered massage therapists on July 1, 2026, by the Office of the Professions count (NYSED Office of the Professions). Each state licenses different things and counts on a different date, so the figures below sit side by side but do not add up to a national total.

Many licence holders live elsewhere. 86.9% of Colorado's active massage therapist licences had a Colorado mailing address (our count), 78.1% of Connecticut's active credentials had a Connecticut address, with New York next (our count), and 10.8% of New York's registered massage therapists had a mailing address outside the state (our calculation). Suffolk County had the most New York registrants of any county, 1,242 (NYSED Office of the Professions).

New licences have fallen in two of these states. New York issued 307 new massage therapist licences in 2025 against 395 in 2021 (NYSED Office of the Professions), 22.3% fewer (our calculation). Colorado first issued 874 massage therapist licences in 2025 that are still in its licence file, against 988 in 2019 (our count). California has no state massage licence: the California Massage Therapy Council, a private nonprofit created by state law in 2009, certifies therapists voluntarily, so its count misses practitioners who hold only a local permit.

How many people take the MBLEx massage licensing exam, and how many pass?

17,160 candidates took the Massage & Bodywork Licensing Examination (MBLEx) between July 2024 and June 2025, and the first-time pass rate was 70.4%, by the Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards' own count (FSMTB Annual Report 2025). FSMTB is the federation of state massage regulatory boards; it owns the exam and earns its fees. The year before, 17,742 candidates tested with a first-time pass rate of 70% (FSMTB Annual Report 2024), and in July 2022 to June 2023, 17,400 tested with a first-time pass rate of 72% (FSMTB Annual Report 2023). Candidates tested are people, not new licences: some fail, some retake and some never apply for a licence.

How many massage therapists are there in the United States?

About 155,400 jobs in 2025, by the Bureau of Labor Statistics' main estimate: BLS's Occupational Outlook Handbook counts that many massage therapist (SOC 31-9011) jobs, self-employed included (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook). Two other BLS counts measure different things. BLS's employer survey found 98,790 massage therapists on employers' payrolls in May 2025 (BLS OEWS); it leaves out everyone who works for themselves. The Current Population Survey, a monthly household survey, counted 183 thousand employed people whose main job was massage therapist in 2025 (BLS Current Population Survey). A household survey picks up people a payroll count misses, but its estimate for a small occupation carries a large sampling error.

How many massage therapists are self-employed?

More than a third: BLS Employment Projections estimates that 35.6 percent of U.S. massage therapist jobs were held by self-employed workers in 2025 (BLS Employment Projections). That is why the payroll count of 98,790 is so much lower than the 155,400 total. The self-employed share is not in any wage figure below, because BLS's wage survey covers only workers on a payroll.

Census counts of businesses with no employees run much higher than any count of therapists, because they count tax filers, not people or storefronts. The Census Bureau's Nonemployer Statistics counted 259,850 businesses with no paid employees in NAICS 621399 (Offices of all other miscellaneous health practitioners) in 2024 (Census Nonemployer Statistics) and 199,632 in NAICS 81219 (Other personal care services) (Census Nonemployer Statistics). Self-employed massage therapists file under both codes, alongside dietitians, hypnotherapists, tanning and tattoo businesses and others, so neither number counts massage therapists alone.

What do massage therapists earn?

The median wage and salary massage therapist in the United States earned $58,450 a year in May 2025 (BLS OEWS), or $28.10 an hour (BLS OEWS). The mean was $63,830 a year (BLS OEWS). Pay is spread wide: one in ten earned less than $33,640 a year (BLS OEWS) and one in ten more than $100,200 (BLS OEWS). The median for all U.S. occupations was $50,980 (BLS OEWS), so the massage therapist median was 14.7% higher (our calculation). These figures come from BLS's survey of employers, so they leave out the self-employed, and they include tips only where the employer reports them as wages.

Who are U.S. massage therapists?

Mostly women: 76.5 percent of the 183 thousand employed massage therapists counted by the Current Population Survey in 2025 were women (BLS CPS). 72.6 percent were White (BLS CPS), 16.5 percent Asian (BLS CPS) and 6.7 percent Black or African American (BLS CPS); 11.7 percent were Hispanic or Latino, who may be of any race (BLS CPS). Their median age was 45.6 years (BLS CPS), older than the 42.1 years of all employed people (BLS CPS). BLS notes that October 2025 was not surveyed because of the federal government shutdown, so 2025 annual averages are not strictly comparable with other years.

Where do massage therapists work?

In personal care services more than anywhere else: BLS puts 33 percent of massage therapist jobs in 2025 in personal care services, the industry group that holds day spas and massage businesses (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook), after the self-employed at 35.6 percent. Offices of other health practitioners held 12 percent (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook), offices of chiropractors 7 percent (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook) and hotels and other accommodation 6 percent (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook). These shares are of all jobs, self-employed included. Counting payroll jobs alone, personal care services employed 50.4% of wage and salary massage therapists in May 2025 (our calculation). The payroll counts and wages in the table come from BLS's May 2025 employer survey.

Where a massage therapist works changes the pay. Payroll massage therapists in chiropractic offices had a median of $72,800 a year in May 2025 (BLS OEWS), against $56,230 in personal care services (BLS OEWS) and $43,710 in hotels, motels and resorts (BLS OEWS): the chiropractic-office median was 1.67 times the hotel median (our calculation; same survey, statistic and month).

What is the job outlook for massage therapists?

BLS projects massage therapist employment to grow 15.3 percent from 2025 to 2035 (BLS Employment Projections), to 179.1 thousand jobs in 2035 (BLS Employment Projections). The Occupational Outlook Handbook calls that much faster than the average for all occupations. BLS expects an average of 20.4 thousand openings a year over the decade (BLS Employment Projections), many of them to replace therapists who move to other occupations or retire. These are model projections, not counts.

How many massage businesses are there?

No federal count isolates them, because massage businesses have no industry code of their own. Non-clinical massage businesses file under NAICS 812199 (Other personal care services), which they share with tanning salons, tattoo and piercing studios, hair removal and other services; massage practices that present as health care file under NAICS 621399 (Offices of all other miscellaneous health practitioners), shared with other practitioners not classified elsewhere; and day spas file under NAICS 812112 (Beauty salons). The counts below are for those whole industries.

BLS's Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages counted an average of 33,417 private establishments with employees in NAICS 812199 in 2025 (BLS QCEW), up from 17,914 in 2015 (BLS QCEW), a rise of 86.5% (our calculation). NAICS 621399 had 43,733 in 2025 (BLS QCEW), up from 18,575 in 2015 (BLS QCEW), a rise of 135.4% (our calculation). QCEW counts only establishments with workers covered by unemployment insurance.

The 2022 Economic Census gives a cleaner view through the services businesses sell. U.S. employer businesses reported $3,128,039 thousand in receipts from therapeutic massage services in 2022 (Census Economic Census) and $1,390,159 thousand from non-therapeutic massage services (Census Economic Census): $4,518,198 thousand, or about $4.5 billion, in all, 69.2% of it therapeutic (our calculation). NAICS 812199 businesses earned 70.0 percent of the therapeutic massage receipts (Census Economic Census), hotels and motels 16.2 percent (Census Economic Census) and beauty salons, the code that holds day spas, 10.7 percent (Census Economic Census). Inside NAICS 812199, therapeutic massage was 16.0 percent of receipts (Census Economic Census) and tanning 8.6 percent (Census Economic Census). These figures leave out businesses with no employees, and they undercount massage done in chiropractic and other health offices, because health care businesses report their receipts by patient diagnosis rather than by service.

How many massage therapists work in Florida, and what do they earn?

Florida employers had 9,280 massage therapists on their payrolls in May 2025, by BLS's Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey (BLS OEWS), 9.4% of the U.S. payroll total (our calculation). Their median wage was $49,680 a year (BLS OEWS), 15.0% below the national median of $58,450 (our calculation). Massage therapy is a bigger part of Florida's workforce than the nation's: the state's location quotient for the occupation was 1.47 (BLS OEWS), meaning massage therapists' share of Florida jobs was 1.47 times their share of U.S. jobs. Like the national payroll count, these figures leave out self-employed therapists, who held 35.6 percent of massage therapist jobs nationwide in 2025.

How many massage therapists work in Palm Beach, Broward and Martin counties?

BLS publishes no county figures for massage therapists, and none for the Palm Beach or Broward metropolitan divisions; the smallest areas it covers are metro areas. The Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metro area, which takes in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties, had 2,740 payroll massage therapists in May 2025 (BLS OEWS), with a median wage of $48,370 a year (BLS OEWS), 17.2% below the U.S. median for the occupation (our calculation). The Port St. Lucie metro area, Martin and St. Lucie counties, had 120 (BLS OEWS), an estimate for a small area that carries a large sampling error.

How many massage businesses are there in Florida and South Florida?

No count isolates them, because massage businesses share their industry codes with other trades (see above). In the shared code NAICS 812199 (Other personal care services), BLS's Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages counted an average of 2,880 private Florida establishments with employees in 2025 (BLS QCEW), up from 1,370 in 2015 (BLS QCEW), a rise of 110.2% (our calculation). Florida had 4,473 establishments with employees in NAICS 621399 (Offices of all other miscellaneous health practitioners) in 2025 (BLS QCEW).

Businesses with no employees, which include sole-proprietor massage therapists, are far more numerous. The Census Bureau's Nonemployer Statistics counted 29,607 Florida nonemployer businesses in NAICS 621399 in 2024 (Census Nonemployer Statistics) and 17,866 in NAICS 81219, Other personal care services (Census Nonemployer Statistics). Each is a tax filer, not a storefront, and each code also holds trades other than massage.

The county counts are for the whole shared industries, so they include tanning, tattoo, hair removal and other personal care businesses in NAICS 812199 and 81219, and dietitians, hypnotherapists and other practitioners in NAICS 621399. BLS does not disclose Martin County employment or pay in NAICS 812199. Together the three counties held 21.2% of Florida's NAICS 812199 employer establishments in 2025 and 21.1% of its NAICS 81219 nonemployer businesses in 2024 (our calculations).

How big are the massage franchises?

Massage Envy is still the largest: it had 993 franchised outlets and no company-owned outlets at the end of 2025, down from 1,083 at the start of 2023, a fall of 8.3% (our calculation), by its own count in Item 20 of its April 2026 franchise disclosure document (FDD) filed in Minnesota (Massage Envy FDD 2026). Hand and Stone Massage and Facial Spa is growing instead: 600 franchised spas plus 15 company-owned at the end of 2025, up from 487 franchised at the start of 2023, a rise of 23.2% (our calculation) (Hand and Stone FDD 2026). The six systems that report to the end of 2025 (Massage Envy, Hand and Stone, Elements, MassageLuXe, Woodhouse and The NOW) had 2,123 outlets between them (our sum, company-owned included). Every figure below is the franchisor's own count, and every franchisor sells franchises, so each is a seller into the massage market. Item 20 counts outlets open on December 31 of each year.

Elements Massage held flat at 239 franchised studios through 2025 and closed its one company-owned studio, per the marked (redline) copy of its 2026 FDD, the only 2026 Elements filing in the Minnesota system. MassageLuXe added 12 spas in 2025 and The NOW, a newer boutique chain, went from 27 outlets in total at the start of fiscal 2023 to 79. The Massage Heights figure is from its November 2024 FDD, the latest on file in Minnesota; LaVida Massage's latest Minnesota FDD is from 2021, so it is left out.

How many massage franchise outlets open and close each year?

At Massage Envy, closings outnumber openings: franchisees opened 3 outlets in 2025, while 10 ceased operations for other reasons, 4 were terminated and 5 were not renewed, by the franchisor's Item 20 count (Massage Envy FDD 2026). In 2023, 10 opened and 36 ceased operations. Ownership also changes hands often: 61 open Massage Envy outlets moved from one franchisee to a new owner in 2025, after 88 in 2024 (Massage Envy FDD 2026). The franchisor projected only 3 new franchised openings for 2026, with 7 signed agreements for outlets not yet open (Massage Envy FDD 2026).

Hand and Stone franchisees opened 25 spas in 2025, after 55 in 2024 and 43 in 2023, against 4 terminations and 1 closure in 2025 (Hand and Stone FDD 2026). The franchisor projected 32 new franchised spas for 2026 and had 63 signed agreements for spas not yet open at the end of 2025 (Hand and Stone FDD 2026).

How many massage franchise outlets are in Florida?

Massage Envy had 111 franchised outlets in Florida at the end of 2025, after opening 1 that year, and Hand and Stone had 82, after opening 9, by each franchisor's Item 20 state table (Massage Envy FDD 2026) (Hand and Stone FDD 2026). That puts 11.2% of Massage Envy's outlets in Florida (our calculation). Hand and Stone also owns spas in the state: 14 of its 15 company-owned spas are in Florida, and the other is in New Jersey (Hand and Stone FDD 2026), so 15.6% of all Hand and Stone spas were in Florida (our calculation). Hand and Stone also had 10 signed franchise agreements for Florida spas not yet open at the end of 2025 and projected 2 Florida openings for 2026 (Hand and Stone FDD 2026).

How much does a massage franchise outlet sell in a year?

About $1.2 million on average at Massage Envy: the 989 franchised businesses that operated all of fiscal 2025 had average gross sales of $1,210,966 and median gross sales of $1,136,666, ranging from $145,352 to $3,300,481, by franchisee reports in Item 19 of the 2026 FDD (Massage Envy FDD 2026). Item 19 figures are reported by franchisees, are not audited, and are sales, not profit.

Massage is the main line but not the only one. At Hand and Stone, massage services brought in an average $807,993 per spa in 2025 and facials $356,807, across 585 spas (Hand and Stone FDD 2026) (Hand and Stone FDD 2026): massage was 59.4% of the average spa's gross sales (our calculation).

How much of a massage franchise's sales comes from memberships?

Most of it at Massage Envy: packages and membership dues made up an average 76.6% of gross sales at its 989 franchised businesses in fiscal 2025, from 55.6% at the lowest business to 90.4% at the highest, by franchisee reports in Item 19 (Massage Envy FDD 2026). Gift cards averaged 5.4% of gross sales and retail products 2.8% (Massage Envy FDD 2026) (Massage Envy FDD 2026). MassageLuXe, which also sells memberships, reports that its 90 franchised spas open at least a year signed an average 414 new members each in 2025 and logged an average 2,453 first-time prospect visits each (MassageLuXe FDD 2026) (MassageLuXe FDD 2026).

What do massage franchisees pay for advertising?

Massage Envy franchisees pay at least 2% of gross sales to a National Advertising Fund and then either 2% to an optional Supplemental Marketing Fund or at least 4% on their own local marketing, under Item 11 of the 2026 FDD (Massage Envy FDD 2026) (Massage Envy FDD 2026). Each franchisor sets its own mix of a central fund and a local spending floor; the terms below are from each one's latest FDD in the Minnesota system.

The funds report where the money went. In fiscal 2025, Massage Envy's National Advertising Fund spent 42% on media placement, 16% on production, 17% on administration and 25% on other purposes, including promotion of massage therapy careers, and its Supplemental Marketing Fund put 81% into media placement (Massage Envy FDD 2026) (Massage Envy FDD 2026). Hand and Stone's National Fund spent 27.4% on media placement, 37.0% on administration, 6.8% on social media and public relations, 6.0% on production and 2.9% on massage therapist recruiting (Hand and Stone FDD 2026).

What do listed companies that sell massage report?

Very little that is specific to massage. XWELL's XpresSpa, an airport spa chain that sells massage, nail and skin care, had 16 domestic airport locations at the end of 2025, plus 9 abroad, by its 2025 Form 10-K (XWELL 10-K 2025); the filing does not break out massage revenue. The large massage franchisors above are privately held and file no 10-K, so their franchise disclosure documents are the main public record of their size and sales.

How often do public companies mention massage therapists in their annual reports?

Rarely: 7 Form 10-K annual reports filed with the SEC in 2025 used the phrase "massage therapist" or "massage therapists", by our count of exact phrases by filing year in EDGAR full-text search (our count). The count peaked at 10 a year in 2022 and 2023 (our count). It has risen over the two decades: 60 10-Ks used one of the two phrases in 2016-2025, against 33 in 2005-2014 (our count). The 2025 filers were a chiropractic franchisor (The Joint), a gym operator (Life Time), a trade-school group (Universal Technical Institute), a payments and software firm for service businesses (EverCommerce), a CBD maker (Charlotte's Web), a mortgage lender (UWM) and Medical Exercise Inc.

The word "massage" on its own appeared in 36 10-Ks filed in 2025, against 45 in 2024 and a peak of 67 in 2013 (our count). Of the 36 in 2025, 4 came from fitness and recreation companies, 4 from health-services companies and 1 from a real estate investment trust, by the first industry code on each filing (our count); the rest were car-seat and furniture makers with massage features, lenders, drug and device makers, a cruise-ship spa operator (OneSpaWorld) and others. The count is of filings, not mentions, and the number of 10-K filers changes from year to year, so these are not shares of all companies.

Massage Envy itself files no 10-K: the 4 filings that named it in 2025 came from a lender, a builder, a shopping-center REIT that lists it as a tenant and a fitness franchisor (our count). Massage chairs are a minor topic too, with 36 10-Ks naming them across 2005-2025 (our count). The search is exact and does no stemming, so each plural was queried separately; years are filing years, so 2025 mostly means reports on fiscal 2024. The yearly counts are published in our CSV of EDGAR massage phrase counts.

What do booking and on-demand apps report about massage?

Massage bookings on ClassPass rose 42% year over year in 2025, and massage was the platform's most-booked wellness appointment worldwide for the third year running (ClassPass 2025 Look Back Report). ClassPass counted its own reservations from January 1 to October 10, 2025 and did not publish how many massage bookings that was. ClassPass sells bookings into this market, so these are a seller's figures about its own users, not a census of massage clients.

The growth sits inside a wider rise: ClassPass says all wellness reservations grew 37% in the same period (ClassPass). In its 2024 report, covering October 2023 to October 2024, ClassPass said massage was the most-booked salon and spa service, with massage reservations up 39% (ClassPass 2024 Look Back Report). In 2023 massage was its No. 1 wellness genre for the second year in a row and the top wellness pick of first-time users (ClassPass 2023 Look Back Report).

MassageBook, which sells booking software to U.S. massage therapists, says on its home page that it serves 14,000+ therapists and clinics and has booked 7M+ appointments, with no date or method given. Fresha's massage sales page claims "26% More clients" without a sample, period or method. These are marketing claims, shown here because booking-app figures are often repeated without that label. No public 2024-2026 figures on massage no-shows, rebooking rates or peak hours were found from Mindbody, Booksy, Square, Zeel or Soothe; Booksy's trend report sits behind a form, and Vagaro's site blocks AI agents, so it was not read.

What do YouTube and Google say about ASMR and relaxation videos?

Google said in September 2016 that YouTube held about 5.2 million ASMR videos (Think with Google). In the same piece, Google said YouTube searches for ASMR grew over 200% year over year in 2015, that searches peak around 10:30 p.m. local time with well over half on mobile, and that a top ASMR video could pass 16 million views (Think with Google). These are the platform owner's own internal data and are now a decade old; no newer ASMR video count from Google was found.

More recent YouTube statements are broader than ASMR. YouTube said there were more than 32 billion views of "oddly satisfying" videos, a genre it files alongside ASMR, from January to September 2023 (YouTube Blog). Its 2022 Culture & Trends survey found 83 percent of Gen Z respondents had used YouTube to watch soothing content that helps them relax (YouTube Blog); the post gives no sample size or fieldwork dates. None of these figures is specific to massage videos.

Who gets a massage in the U.S.?

Men were slightly more likely than women to get a massage in 2025: 23% of men and 19% of women surveyed received one within the last year, according to the American Massage Therapy Association's 2026 fact sheet (AMTA). AMTA is a professional association of massage therapists. It says the fact sheet draws on four 2025 AMTA benchmark surveys, but the web page gives no sample size or field dates for these figures, and it prints no single rate for all adults.

Income matters more than gender in AMTA's figures, from the 2026 fact sheet built on its 2025 surveys. Among people with household income of $100,000 or more, 34% got a massage last year, against 14% of those making $50,000 or less (AMTA). AMTA also says consumers with children under 18 at home are 10% more likely to get a massage (AMTA). Its PDF fact sheet shows that "10%" is a gap in percentage points between the two groups, not a relative difference.

The most recent consumer survey published by Associated Bodywork & Massage Professionals (ABMP), which sells liability insurance to massage therapists, is older. It found that 18% of American adults received a massage in 2018 and 40% had had one at some point in their lives (ABMP 2019 consumer survey).

Why do people get a massage?

Most massage clients in 2025 went for health reasons. In AMTA's annual consumer survey, 71% of massage consumers had used massage for a health or medical reason in the 12 months ending June 2025 (AMTA consumer survey). Big Village ran the survey for AMTA online with 1,000 U.S. adults on July 11-13, 2025.

Asked about their last massage in AMTA's July 2025 consumer survey, 79% of those surveyed said the main reason was health or wellness or stress: 49% named health or wellness and 30% named stress (AMTA consumer survey). Across all adults surveyed, 29% had a massage for pain relief or pain management in the same 12 months (AMTA).

AMTA's 2026 fact sheet lists the top conditions as soreness, stiffness or spasm (49%), chronic pain relief and management (42%) and, on the mental health side, relaxation and stress reduction (43%) (AMTA fact sheet). AMTA's own PDF labels the same chart as the concerns that led consumers to discuss massage with a doctor, so it is unclear whether these figures cover all massage consumers or only those who talked to a doctor.

Attitudes in the 2025 survey lean the same way. 91% of adults surveyed said massage is beneficial to overall health and wellness, 94% said it can be effective in reducing pain, and 86% agreed it should be considered a form of health care (AMTA consumer survey). 29% said massage is only a form of pampering (AMTA).

How often do massage clients go, and where?

Consumers had an average of 2.7 massages in the 12 months ending June 2025, per AMTA's 2025 consumer survey (AMTA). The page does not say whether that average covers all adults or massage consumers only. For their last massage, 20% of massage consumers went to a spa (AMTA). Other settings for the last massage are not listed on that page.

Some people who don't go to spas say they would try massage. In the International Spa Association's 2025 Consumer Snapshot, more than 60 percent of U.S. adults who had not visited a spa in the past year said they were open to trying massage services (ISPA). ISPA is a spa trade body. PwC ran that online survey of 1,000 U.S. respondents on December 9-20, 2024. Being open to trying massage is a stated interest, not a booking.

Do doctors send patients to massage therapists?

About one in five who talked to a doctor about massage were referred. In AMTA's 2025 consumer survey, 22% of consumers who discussed massage therapy with a doctor or medical provider were referred to a massage therapist, and 24% said the provider strongly recommended a massage (AMTA consumer survey). Pain was the most common topic: 51% of those who discussed massage with their doctor talked about acute or chronic pain (AMTA). AMTA does not publish how many respondents were in this group.

Massage therapists report a lot of referrals from their own colleagues. In AMTA's 2025 surveys of therapists, 74% said they get referrals from other massage therapists, 64% from other healthcare professionals and 60% from chiropractic offices (AMTA fact sheet).

AMTA also publishes a report whose economic model estimates that including massage therapy in comprehensive care models could cut U.S. healthcare system costs by about $11.1 billion a year (AMTA). That figure is a modelled projection in an advocacy report, not a measured saving.

How many massage therapists do the professional bodies count?

AMTA puts the number of U.S. massage therapists at 355,075 in 2025 (AMTA). It does not publish how it got that figure. ABMP's licensee-based count is lower: 321,493 in 2023, down from its 2019 peak of 334,221 (ABMP). ABMP asks each state massage board for its active licensees, removes therapists licensed in more than one state and estimates unregulated states. Both groups count credential holders, so both totals run above government counts of massage therapist jobs.

The supply of new therapists is smaller. ABMP estimates 22,183 people graduated from 872 state-approved massage programs in 2022, based on a January-April 2023 census in which 570 of the 900-plus programs it contacted responded (ABMP). AMTA counts 196+ massage institutions accredited by national accrediting agencies (AMTA).

Where and how do massage therapists work?

Most massage therapists work for themselves. AMTA says sole practitioners are the largest group of practicing therapists, at 73%, though its career page gives no year or sample size for that share (AMTA). In AMTA's 2025 surveys, 82% of therapists said massage therapy was not their first career (AMTA fact sheet).

AMTA's two versions of the 2026 fact sheet don't agree on the fifth setting. The web page labels the 13% bar "massage therapy franchise", while the PDF gives the same 13% to chiropractic offices or integrated health care clinics. A separate, undated figure on AMTA's career page says 53% of therapists work at least part of their time at a client's home, business or corporate setting (AMTA).

AMTA's industry survey asks therapists about pay and hours, but the results appear only in its members-only research report. The public 2026 fact sheet gives no figures for income, weekly hours, age or gender.

What do massage therapists charge, and do they want more clients?

ABMP members charged an average of $87 for a 60-minute session in early 2023, in a member survey ABMP published in March 2023 (ABMP). In the same survey, 47% had raised their prices in the past year and 40% said they would like more clients. ABMP does not publish the sample size or field dates.

Price is the main reason past clients give for stopping. In ABMP's 2019 consumer survey, 34% of people who had had a massage before but not in 2018 said it was too expensive (ABMP).

Therapists in ABMP's surveys say they like the work. In a 2023 internal member survey, members rated their career satisfaction at an average of 8.3 out of 10 (ABMP).

How big is the U.S. spa industry?

U.S. spa revenue reached $23.5 billion in 2025, up 4.2 percent, according to ISPA's 2026 U.S. Spa Industry Study (ISPA). The ISPA Research Foundation commissions the study, and PwC carries it out. It counted 191 million spa visits and 22,060 spa locations in 2025, and 376,900 spa workers in January 2026 (ISPA). These totals cover all spa types and every spa job, not only massage businesses or massage therapists. ISPA's release gives no share for massage.

Can family members learn massage from a video?

In the Touch, Caring and Cancer trial of video-taught caregiver massage, 97 U.S. cancer patient and caregiver pairs were randomized in a study published in 2012-2013 (Supportive Care in Cancer, Collinge et al.). Caregivers in the massage group learned from a multilingual 78-minute DVD and a 66-page manual and practiced at home for 4 weeks; the control group read aloud to patients instead. Patients' symptom ratings fell 29-44 % after massage, against 12-28 % after reading, and massage caregivers reported more confidence and comfort giving touch (Collinge et al.). Both groups improved and all outcomes were self-reported. The program was produced by the lead author's own firm.

Keeping families engaged is the weak point. When the VA tried the same program with Veterans who had cancer, 11 of 27 pairs completed 8 weeks of data and practiced weekly, and caregivers' burden accounted for 69% of the dropouts (Journal of Supportive Oncology, Kozak et al.). Before the DVD existed, Collinge's 2007 study taught partners in a 6-hour in-person workshop and saw massage rise from 1.2 to 2.7 times a week over 3 months (Journal of the Society for Integrative Oncology), which shows what in-person teaching achieved as a comparison point.

The VA's TOMCATT trial in Indianapolis combined in-person training with an instructional DVD and a printed manual so that a spouse or friend could give Veterans a 30-minute neck massage three times a week. Of the 102 Veterans assigned to that approach, 45% skipped the training and withdrew (Contemporary Clinical Trials, Munk et al.); earlier in the trial, 63% of that arm dropped out between randomization and the first session (JMIR Research Protocols). Those who stayed had pain severity 1.3 points lower than waitlist controls at 3 months (Munk et al.), a comparison against no treatment rather than against a therapist.

Does video instruction change how people practice massage?

Short trials of single techniques point the same way: video instruction tends to raise practice or skill, but samples are small. Ninety-eight new fathers at a Southern California hospital took part in a 2020 crossover trial; those who had just watched an infant-massage video touched their babies more during observation (MCN, Suchy et al.). In a 2020 study of 40 adults using roller-ball self-massage, the instructional-video group gained 210 kPa in pressure pain threshold against 44 kPa for a self-chosen routine (Journal of Human Kinetics, Cheatham et al.).

Freely posted video is a different matter. A 2022 review of 90 YouTube videos on lymphedema rehabilitation found manual lymphatic drainage was the most-mentioned component (Archives of Physiotherapy), but the videos averaged 2.7 out of 5 on a global quality scale and 2.2 out of 5 for reliability (Küçükakkaş and İnce). The PubMed searches run for this page found no trial of hands-on massage taught live over telehealth.

What do studies of ASMR videos measure?

ASMR videos lowered heart rate by an average of 3.41 beats per minute in people who experience ASMR, in a 110-person laboratory study published in 2018 (PLOS ONE, Poerio et al.). The same paper's online experiment, with a final sample of 1002 people, found the videos raised pleasant feelings only in those who get ASMR tingles (PLOS ONE); its introduction lists simulated massages among the popular video types. The first peer-reviewed ASMR survey, in 2015, named whispering, personal attention, crisp sounds and slow movements as common triggers and found 5.9% of respondents reported synaesthesia (PeerJ, Barratt and Davis).

About 20% of people may experience ASMR, according to a 2022 survey of 648 adults and students in Japan (Frontiers in Psychology, Poerio et al.). An online study of 1,037 adults found mood and relaxation improved after one ASMR video, most in people with depression symptoms (Journal of Affective Disorders). Touch matters: on a 37-item trigger checklist, physical touch to the body was the most endorsed trigger, at 98% (Consciousness and Cognition), and 84% of answers were unchanged 5 months later (Poerio et al.). People most sensitive to slow stroking, with pleasantness peaking at 3–9 cm/s, felt stronger tingling during ASMR videos in a 46-person study (Scientific Reports).

Most ASMR experiments are small. A 2026 pain study compared 20 ASMR experiencers with 20 controls during an ASMR video (Pain Reports), and the first brain-scan study used 10 people (BioImpacts). A 2025 content analysis of ear, nose and throat role-play ASMR videos on YouTube found 96.4% showed ear content, and the most realistic videos drew the least engagement (The Laryngoscope). The PubMed searches run for this page found no study of massage-themed ASMR videos specifically.

How many U.S. adults use massage therapy, and how has that changed?

About 11% of U.S. adults used massage therapy in the 12 months before their 2022 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) interview, tied with chiropractic care behind meditation and yoga, in an analysis of 27,651 adults by Nemesure and colleagues at Stony Brook Medicine (Journal of Evidence-Based Integrative Medicine). The NHIS is the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) household interview survey of the civilian noninstitutionalized population. Two other analyses of the same 2022 file print 10.9 percent (NCCIH, Nahin et al. 2024) and 11.1% for visiting a massage therapist (Levin & Bradshaw, Explore); the gap comes from rounding and how each paper defined use.

Use roughly doubled over 20 years. The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) puts 2002 use at 4.8 percent (NCCIH), while NCHS's own 2015 trend report, which age-adjusts to the 2000 U.S. population, printed 5.0% for 2002, 8.3% for 2007 and 6.9% for 2012 (NCHS, Clarke et al. 2015). The rise was not steady: NCHS classed the 2002-2012 massage trend as quadratic, up to 2007 and down by 2012. The 2017 NHIS releases from NCHS covered only yoga, meditation and chiropractors, so there is no 2017 massage figure. A separate weighted analysis of the 2012 survey (n = 34,525) put past-year use of a massage practitioner at 6.8% and lifetime use at 12.8% (Sundberg et al., Musculoskeletal Science and Practice).

The rise is part of a wider shift. The share of U.S. adults using at least one of seven complementary approaches (yoga, meditation, massage therapy, chiropractic care, acupuncture, naturopathy and guided imagery or progressive muscle relaxation) grew from 19.2% in 2002 to 36.7% in 2022, according to the NIH analysis (NCCIH press release). Nemesure's broader list of practices gives 37% for 2022 (Nemesure et al.). Among adults with chronic disease-related functional limitations, CDC researchers found age-standardized massage use rose from 7.0% in 2002 to 10.9% in 2007 (Okoro et al., NHIS).

How many U.S. adults use massage for pain, and do they pay for it themselves?

In 2022, 6.0% of all U.S. adults made massage visits for pain in the past year and 8.5% went to restore overall health, according to Levin and Bradshaw's analysis of the NHIS (Explore). Measured among massage users instead of all adults, NCCIH found the share who used it for pain rose from 39.2 percent in 2002 to 53.4 percent in 2022 (NCCIH, Nahin et al. 2024). NCCIH notes that the survey's wording about use for pain changed between years.

In the 2012 survey, 56.3% of past-year massage users said they used it mainly for general wellness or disease prevention and 41.9% for a specific, usually musculoskeletal, health problem; 85.2% of that second group said it helped some or a great deal (Sundberg et al.). Most users, 59.1%, had not told their health care provider (Sundberg et al.). Few had insurance cover: 84.7 percent of 2012 massage users had no coverage, 8.3 percent partial and 7 percent complete, against about 60 percent of chiropractic users with at least some coverage (NCCIH summary of NCHS data).

What do the best evidence reviews say massage does for pain?

No conclusion about massage for pain has been rated high-certainty evidence. A 2024 review by VA Greater Los Angeles researchers found 129 systematic reviews of massage for painful adult conditions published from 2018 to 2023; of the 17 that graded their evidence and could be mapped, 7 conclusions reached moderate certainty, all favouring massage, and every other conclusion was low or very low certainty (Mak et al., JAMA Network Open). The VA Evidence-based Synthesis Program's first evidence map in 2016 found 31 systematic reviews and no finding rated moderate or high strength (VA ESP), and its 2019 journal version found 49 reviews whose high-quality members described "low strength of evidence" of potential benefits for labor, shoulder, neck, low back, cancer, arthritis, postoperative and musculoskeletal pain (Miake-Lye et al.).

• Low-back pain. The 2015 Cochrane review pooled 25 trials with 3,096 participants and graded the evidence "low" to "very low" (Cochrane, Furlan et al.). For sub-acute and chronic low-back pain, massage beat inactive controls for short-term pain (standardized mean difference -0.75) but not in the long term (Cochrane). The authors wrote that they had "very little confidence that massage is an effective treatment" for low-back pain.
• Chronic pain, by condition. AHRQ's 2020 update covered 233 randomized trials across chronic low back pain, neck pain, osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia and tension headache (AHRQ, Skelly et al.). For chronic low back pain it rated the evidence moderate that massage improved function in the short term, 1 to under 6 months after treatment; for chronic neck pain it rated massage's short-term benefit low (AHRQ).
• Neck pain. The 2024 Cochrane review included 33 studies with 1,994 participants and found, on low-certainty evidence, that massage probably makes little or no difference to pain, function or quality of life compared with a placebo at up to 12 weeks (Cochrane, Gross et al.). Pain improved by 3.43 points on a 0-100 scale against placebo (Cochrane). A subgroup favoured a higher dose of at least 8 sessions of 30 minutes or more over four weeks.
• Pain in general. A 2016 meta-analysis of 67 trials by the Samueli Institute's Evidence for Massage Therapy working group found massage reduced pain against no treatment (standardized mean difference -1.14) and said it "should be strongly recommended" against no treatment, but only "weakly recommended" against sham or active treatments (Pain Medicine, Crawford et al.). Against active comparators it also eased anxiety (-0.57) (Pain Medicine).
• Labour pain. The 2018 Cochrane review found low-quality evidence that massage cut pain intensity more than usual care in the first stage of labour (standardized mean difference -0.81, six trials, 362 women), and very low-quality evidence of no clear effect on length of labour or caesarean rates (Cochrane, Smith et al.).

What does the evidence say for cancer symptoms, anxiety and depression, fibromyalgia and preterm infants?

For cancer, the 2016 Cochrane review found 19 studies with 1,274 participants, all very low quality evidence, and concluded there was "a lack of evidence on the clinical effectiveness of massage for symptom relief in people with cancer" (Cochrane, Shin et al.). A 2016 Pain Medicine meta-analysis found massage beat active comparators for cancer pain (standardized mean difference -0.55) but made only weak recommendations (Boyd et al.). The 2022 Society for Integrative Oncology-ASCO guideline, built on 227 studies, says massage "may be recommended" for patients in pain during palliative or hospice care (Journal of Clinical Oncology), a moderate strength recommendation based on an intermediate level of evidence (SIO-ASCO). The 2023 SIO-ASCO guideline on anxiety and depression in adults with cancer, drawn from 110 studies, did not include massage among its recommended approaches (Journal of Clinical Oncology).

For mood, a 2004 Psychological Bulletin meta-analysis of 37 randomized studies found reductions in trait anxiety and depression were massage's largest effects, while single sessions did not lower immediate pain or cortisol (Moyer et al.). A 2010 meta-analysis of 17 trials with 786 depressed people put the pooled effect at a standardized mean difference of 0.73 (Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, Hou et al.).

For fibromyalgia, a 2014 meta-analysis of 9 trials with 404 patients found massage lasting at least 5 weeks improved pain (standardized mean difference 0.62), anxiety and depression but not sleep (PLoS One, Li et al.). A 2015 review of massage styles, with a meta-analysis pooled from 145 participants, found moderate evidence for myofascial release and concluded that Swedish massage "does not improve outcomes" (Manual Therapy, Yuan et al.).

For preterm and low birth-weight babies, the 2004 Cochrane review found massage added 5.1 g of daily weight gain and appeared to shorten hospital stays by 4.5 days, but called the evidence for developmental benefit weak (Cochrane, Vickers et al.). A 2013 meta-analysis of 17 studies found 5.32 g a day more weight gain and 4.41 fewer days in hospital (American Journal of Perinatology, Wang et al.). NCCIH cites a 2017 review in which 20 studies covering 1,250 infants measured weight gain, most showing an improvement, and says no benefit for healthy full-term infants has been clearly shown (NCCIH).

How often does massage therapy cause harm?

Serious harm from massage is rare in the trial record. None of the 25 trials in the 2015 Cochrane low-back pain review reported a serious adverse event; increased pain, the most common side effect, affected 1.5% to 25% of participants across trials (Cochrane, Furlan et al.). AHRQ's review of 233 trials found no evidence suggesting an increased risk of serious treatment-related harms for any of the treatments it studied. A 2014 review of case reports and studies from 2003 to 2013 counted 138 adverse events in 40 reports, including disc herniation, nerve damage, spinal cord injury and vertebral artery dissection, often after spinal manipulation within a massage; it concluded massage is "not totally devoid of risks" but that "the incidence of such events is low" (Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Yin et al.). That review counted events, not a rate, because no one counts the massages given.

How often do massage therapists get hurt at work?

In a 2022 voluntary online survey of 1,103 current and former registered massage therapists in Ontario, Canada, 85% had experienced or were experiencing work-related pain (International Journal of Therapeutic Massage & Bodywork, Barraclough et al.). The hand and wrist was the most common site at 65.5%, followed by fingers and thumb, shoulder, lower back and neck (Barraclough et al.). 60.3% blamed the gradual onset of musculoskeletal conditions (Barraclough et al.). The pain had costs: 54.6% worked in pain, 31% lost income and 30.5% were considering changing, or had changed, profession (Barraclough et al.). The authors warn that self-selected respondents may skew these shares.

• An earlier survey of 502 registered massage therapists across Canada found the most pain in the wrist and thumb, then the low back, neck and shoulders, even though most said they had been trained in posture and self-care (Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies, Albert et al.).
• In Taiwan, where massage work is reserved for visually impaired people, 71.4% of 161 randomly selected practitioners had at least one work-related musculoskeletal disorder in 12 months, most often in the finger or thumb (Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation, Jang et al.).
• In a U.S. online survey of 2,079 massage therapists and bodywork practitioners, physical exhaustion was the strongest correlate of having to cut back work because of injury (Blau et al.).
• A Massage Therapy Foundation job task analysis by trained ergonomists found long strokes such as effleurage put mild biomechanical stress on the therapist's shoulders 90% of the time, the neck 70% and the trunk 60% (Resnick, 2024).

What does it take to get a massage therapist licence in Florida?

Florida requires a course of study of 500 or more clock hours at a board-approved massage school, according to the Florida Board of Massage Therapy's licensing page in 2026 (Florida Board of Massage Therapy). The statute itself sets the other conditions: an applicant must be at least 18 years old or hold a high school diploma, finish a board-approved course and pass a national examination chosen by the board (Fla. Stat. 480.041). The board accepts the MBLEx, the exam run by the Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards (Florida Board of Massage Therapy).

The statute does not print an hour figure; the board's school rule does the work. Its Chart A requires 150 hours of anatomy and physiology, 100 hours of massage theory and history and 125 hours of clinical practicum, plus smaller blocks on allied modalities, business, hydrotherapy, Florida law, ethics, HIV/AIDS and medical errors (Fla. Admin. Code R. 64B7-32.003). Students may log no more than 6 hours a day and 30 hours a calendar week (Fla. Admin. Code R. 64B7-32.003).

Licences renew every two years. After the first renewal, each cycle requires 24 hours of continuing education (Florida Board of Massage Therapy), of which 12 must be classroom hours taught in person with hands-on instruction (Fla. Admin. Code R. 64B7-28.009). One hour of human trafficking awareness is required in every cycle, the first included (Fla. Admin. Code R. 64B7-28.009). The law caps the requirement at 25 classroom hours per biennium (Fla. Stat. 480.0415). The application and examination fee may not exceed $250 (Fla. Stat. 480.044). Licensing runs through a Board of Massage Therapy of seven members appointed by the Governor: five licensed therapists and two laypeople (Fla. Stat. 480.035).

What anti-trafficking rules apply to Florida massage establishments?

Every Florida massage establishment had to have a written procedure for reporting suspected human trafficking to the Florida Human Trafficking Hotline (1-855-FLA-SAFE) or local police by January 1, 2025, with a sign about it posted where employees can see it (Fla. Stat. 480.043). The duty dates from Florida's 2019 human trafficking act (CS/CS/CS/HB 851, chapter 2019-152), which first set a deadline of January 1, 2021 and named the National Human Trafficking Hotline (Laws of Fla. ch. 2019-152). That act took effect on July 1, 2019 (Laws of Fla. ch. 2019-152). It also required each establishment to have a designated establishment manager who practises on site; establishments licensed before July 1, 2019 had to name one by January 1, 2020 (Fla. Stat. 480.043).

The 2019 act reached individual therapists too. Each licensed massage therapist had to complete a 1-hour continuing education course on human trafficking by January 1, 2021 (Laws of Fla. ch. 2019-152) and post at work a sign at least 11 inches by 15 inches in 32-point type, in English and Spanish (Laws of Fla. ch. 2019-152). A separate statute, s. 787.29, requires any massage or bodywork business not owned by a licensed health care practitioner to display a public awareness sign at least 8.5 inches by 11 inches in 16-point type, in English and Spanish (Fla. Stat. 787.29).

Florida's 2024 massage law (CS/CS/HB 197, chapter 2024-148) took effect on July 1, 2024 and added a long list of establishment rules (Laws of Fla. ch. 2024-148). Outside windows into the reception area must let through at least 35 percent of light, and no more than 50 percent of the glass may be covered (Fla. Stat. 480.043). A front-window sign must show the establishment's name, license number and licensing phone number (Fla. Stat. 480.043). The establishment must display a 2 inch by 2 inch photo of every employee with the employee's legal name and job before that person serves a client (Fla. Stat. 480.043), confirm each client's identity, and keep client records for at least 1 year (Fla. Stat. 480.043). Sexual activity and condoms are banned on the premises, and all employees must be fully clothed in opaque clothing. The act authorised eight new Department of Health positions and $925,080 a year in recurring trust-fund money to enforce it (Laws of Fla. ch. 2024-148).

Owners face screening and conduct rules as well. When a corporation shows more than $250,000 of business assets in Florida, the owner, the designated manager and every person directly involved in management must pass background screening (Fla. Stat. 480.043). No massage establishment may open between midnight and 5 a.m., with exceptions for establishments in hospitals, clinics, hotels, timeshares, airports and pari-mutuel facilities (Fla. Stat. 480.0475). The premises may not be used as anyone's home or as sleeping or napping quarters unless zoned residential. A first breach of the hours or sleeping rule is a first-degree misdemeanor, and a repeat is a felony of the third degree (Fla. Stat. 480.0475).

Anyone working in a Florida massage establishment must show valid government identification when a Department of Health investigator or police officer asks. Six documents qualify: a driver licence, a state ID card, a U.S. passport, a naturalization certificate, a green card or a DHS employment authorization card. Failing to produce one becomes a third-degree felony on a third or subsequent violation (Fla. Stat. 480.0535), and the department must notify a federal immigration office when someone cannot (Fla. Stat. 480.0535).

Must massage advertisements show a licence number?

In Florida, yes. Every licensed massage therapist and massage establishment must include the number of the license in any advertisement of massage services, in any medium including newspapers, broadcast, phone directories and the Internet (Fla. Stat. 480.0465). Since 2024 the ad must also carry the establishment's street address and licensing phone number, unless the owner operates more than five locations in Florida (Fla. Stat. 480.0465). The same section bans ads offering sexual or escort services and any online ad on a website known for advertising them. Florida's definition of "advertising medium" covers business cards, flyers, signs and computer transmissions.

Texas takes a different route: it reserves the word itself. A person who is not licensed (or expressly exempt) may not use the word "massage" in any form of advertising, a sexually oriented business may not use "massage" or "bath" on a sign or ad, and anyone advertising massage is presumed to be practising it (Tex. Occ. Code 455.205).

What does Texas require of massage therapists and massage establishments?

Texas requires a 500-hour minimum supervised course of instruction for a massage therapist licence, the same floor as Florida (Tex. Occ. Code 455.156). The statute splits the hours by subject, from 200 hours of technique and theory (125 of them Swedish massage) to 50 hours in an internship programme (Tex. Occ. Code 455.156). The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR) accepts the MBLEx, but MBLEx takers must also pass the Texas Jurisprudence Exam on state law (TDLR). The application fee is $100 and a licence lasts two years (TDLR); each renewal requires at least 12 hours of approved continuing education (TDLR).

Any Texas business that advertises or offers massage needs its own massage establishment licence before it opens; the application fee is $200 (TDLR). An establishment may employ only licensed therapists to give massage and may not let anyone reside on the premises or engage in sexual contact there (Tex. Occ. Code 455.202). Establishments and massage schools must post a human trafficking sign in English, Spanish, Korean, Mandarin and any other language the commission requires, with a national hotline number and the Department of Public Safety's tip line (Tex. Occ. Code 455.207). Since September 1, 2020, Texas massage therapists must also complete a human trafficking prevention course approved by the Health and Human Services Commission to renew a licence (TDLR).

Which states have no statewide massage licence?

Minnesota, California and Vermont are the clearest cases in their own official texts as of 2026. Minnesota's statutes list body work, massage, and massage therapy among the complementary and alternative health care practices that unlicensed practitioners may offer under chapter 146A, rather than licensing massage therapists (Minn. Stat. 146A.01). In California, certification by the California Massage Therapy Council is voluntary and not required by state law to practise, though some cities and counties require it (CAMTC). The Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards lists Vermont's credential as a “Registration” with no minimum education hours and no exam (FSMTB).

The federation's table of states and territories that regulate massage has no rows for Kansas, Minnesota or Wyoming, and it notes that “Local (county or municipal) ordinances” may apply where a state does not regulate massage (FSMTB). This page did not find a Kansas or Wyoming statute or board page that states the absence of a licence in so many words, so it reports only that the federation does not list them.

What is the Interstate Massage Compact, and how many states have joined?

The Interstate Massage Compact (IMpact) is a model law that would let a therapist licensed in one member state practise in the others on a single multistate licence; as of July 2026 the Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards counted four states in it (FSMTB). To qualify for a multistate licence, a therapist would need an active home-state licence, at least 625 clock hours of education, a national exam and a background check, in the compact text as Nevada enacted it (NRS 640C.650). The compact takes effect only when it is enacted in a seventh member state (NRS 640C.650), and its own site expects the first multistate licences 12-18 months after the commission forms (IMpact FAQ).

The count has gone backwards. In January 2026 the compact's site, which is run for the federation, listed five enacted states: Nevada, Ohio, Arkansas, Virginia and Montana (IMpact). Bills were carried over or introduced in eight more states in 2026. No states finished the process (IMpact). Then Ohio replaced its law with a different compact text promoted by the American Massage Therapy Association, and the federation said Ohio was no longer part of the official compact, leaving four (FSMTB). The federation, which represents state massage boards, opposes the revised text that the Council of State Governments and AMTA have circulated, so the number of "compact states" depends on which version is being counted. With four or five enactments rather than seven, the compact has not come into effect, so no multistate massage licence exists yet under the text Nevada enacted (NRS 640C.650).

How many training hours does each state require for a massage licence?

Across the 14 states below, the minimum training for a massage credential in 2026 runs from 500 hours in Florida, Texas and Georgia to 1,000 hours in New York and Nebraska, according to each state's statute or board page or the table kept by the Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards (FSMTB), the federation of state massage boards. Continuing education runs from 12 hours per renewal in Texas and Hawaii to 36 hours every three years in New York. Most states accept the MBLEx; New York and Hawaii use their own state exams, and California's credential is a voluntary certification with no state licence behind it.

The hour figures are minimums set in law or board rules, and they change. Arizona's statute prints a floor of five hundred hours but lets the board raise it by rule, which is why the federation lists 700. Nevada's statute prints 500 hours only for its temporary-licence route; the 625 figure comes from the federation's table. The federation's own disclaimer says some states are raising hours and that each board should be checked. The Washington and Ohio figures come only from that table, because both states' official statute sites disallow automated readers. New York and Nebraska, at 1,000 hours, have the highest minimums in this table.

Hours also shape the planned Interstate Massage Compact. Its multistate licence would require 625 clock hours of education, more than Florida, Texas, Georgia or Arizona's statutory floor require for a home-state licence. The compact's FAQ says a therapist from a state with fewer required hours could still qualify by documenting extra education, including continuing education (IMpact FAQ).

What do the popular massage numbers really say?

Four numbers that massage marketing and policy pages repeat trace back to narrower sources than the repeats suggest: an industry size that began as a projection from federal health-spending data and later became a market-research model, a past-year share of adults from small commissioned phone polls, a single video vendor's client tests, and an advocacy group's estimate of illicit businesses seeded from a sex-buyer review site. Each claim below gives the claim as repeated, where it came from, what the original measured, and what to use instead.

"The massage industry is worth $18 billion" (or $11.7 billion, $16 billion, $18.9 billion)

The claim as repeated. A massage franchisor's franchise-sales page says that, according to the American Massage Therapy Association (AMTA), "the massage therapy industry is an $18 billion industry", with no year (MassageLuXe). A massage school's June 2019 post says that in 2018 the U.S. market "was worth $18 billion" and sets it beside the $6 billion to $11 billion estimated for 2005 as proof of growth (East-West College).

Where it came from. AMTA, a professional association, has printed an industry size on its fact sheet since at least 2005. The earliest edition we found, the 2005 Massage Therapy Industry Fact Sheet, said massage therapy "was projected to be a $6 to $11 billion a year industry". Its footnote credits the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' 2004 National Health Expenditure Projections and a CDC report on complementary medicine use in 2002. It was a projection from federal spending projections and survey use rates, not a count of receipts (AMTA, 2005). The 2008 edition still carried the same line, "$6 to $11 billion" for 2005 (AMTA, 2008).

How it changed. From 2012 to 2014 AMTA gave its own estimates, footnoted only as "data compiled by" AMTA, and they swung by billions of dollars from year to year. From the 2015 edition the figure came from IBISWorld's paywalled Massage Services industry report, a market-research model. The series by edition, each read in an Internet Archive capture:

The "$18 billion" on school and franchise pages is the 2019 edition's IBISWorld figure for 2018. Comparing it with the 2005 projection, as the school's post does, sets a market-research model against a projection from health-spending data.

What the market-research firms say now. IBISWorld's free industry page puts its U.S. Massage Services industry at $18.9bn in 2026 (IBISWorld). Its free market-size page gives the same $18.9bn as the 2025 figure (IBISWorld), so the year attached to the number depends on which IBISWorld page is read. IBISWorld counts 194k businesses in the industry in 2025 (IBISWorld). Grand View Research, another firm that sells its reports, values the global massage therapy service market at USD 20.8 billion in 2025 (Grand View Research), with North America at a 41.1% share (Grand View Research). A global figure barely above IBISWorld's U.S.-only figure shows that the firms define the market differently. Neither publishes its method on its free page.

What to use instead. The Census Bureau's 2022 Economic Census, which counts what businesses actually sold: U.S. employer businesses reported $4,518,198,000 (about $4.5 billion) in therapeutic and non-therapeutic massage receipts in 2022 (our sum of its two product lines, in the workforce section). That leaves out sole proprietors and undercounts massage done in health offices, so say so when quoting it. If a market-research figure is quoted, give the firm, the edition date, the year it describes and whether it is U.S. or global.

"21% of adults got a massage last year" (or 18%, 19%, 24%, 34%)

The claim as repeated. The same franchise-sales page says that, according to the AMTA consumer survey, "an average of 21 percent of adult Americans received at least one massage in a spa in the last year" (MassageLuXe). AMTA's survey counts a massage anywhere, not only in a spa; "in a spa" is the repeater's addition. A massage supplies seller's November 2024 post repeats AMTA's 2024 report that 39% of people earning $100,000 or more got a massage last year, with no survey vendor, dates, sample size or age range (Biotone).

Where it came from. AMTA commissions an annual consumer phone poll; its 2018 round was the 22nd. The earliest edition we read, the 2005 fact sheet, gave a five-year measure: 34 percent of adult Americans had a massage in the past five years (AMTA, 2005). The 2008 edition gave the first past-year figure we found: between August 2006 and June 2007 almost a quarter of adult Americans (24 percent) had a massage at least once in the last 12 months (AMTA, 2008).

Who was asked. The polls were small. AMTA's consumer fact sheet described its annual survey as an ORC International telephone poll of two national probability samples, 1,003 adults aged 18 and older in the 2014 round (AMTA consumer fact sheet), and 1,001 adults in its 22nd annual survey in 2018, beside a separate Zogby Analytics poll of 1,252 adults (AMTA consumer fact sheet).

How it changed. The past-year share in AMTA's own survey moved within a narrow band, each period running July to July:

From 2017 AMTA also printed a second poll beside its own. The 2017 edition gave a range of 19-25 percent for July 2015 to July 2016, its own survey at the low end and a Zogby Analytics poll at the high end, not a margin of error (AMTA, 2017 edition). The 2018 edition said a July 2017 Zogby Analytics poll found 24 percent had received a massage from a massage therapist in the past year (AMTA, 2018 edition), beside the 19 percent above. Repeaters choose one number and drop "at least once in the past 12 months", the age floor of 18, the vendor and the sample of about 1,000.

What to use instead. The National Health Interview Survey, a federal household survey, in the health section of this page: 10.9 percent of U.S. adults used massage in 2022 by NCCIH's analysis, and about 11% in an independent one. It asks a different question (use of massage therapy in the past 12 months), so its rate is not directly comparable with AMTA's poll. Any AMTA figure should be given with its survey year, its vendor and its sample size.

"Video lifts conversions 80%"

The claim as repeated. A massage supplies seller's January 2017 post for spa and massage practices lists "statistics offered by Hubspot", among them that "including video on a landing page can increase conversion by 80%", with no link (Biotone). A spa booking-software seller's marketing post from June 2021 says that videos on a landing page can give an 80% increase in conversion rates and links to a 2017 Forbes column, which we could not read because forbes.com blocks AI agents (DaySmart Spa).

Where it came from. The trail starts with EyeView, which made and tested videos for its clients. A blog post of December 4, 2008 said visitors to eToro's site who viewed EyeView's video were 20% more likely to download the product. That compared viewers with non-viewers, who chose for themselves whether to watch (EyeView, 2009 capture). The first 80% figure we found is in a post of February 10, 2009: viewers of EyeView's videos for UMOO were 80% more likely to become depositing users, the same kind of comparison (EyeView). In November 2009 a TutorVista manager said the first test on one landing page "boosted conversion by over 80 percent" (EyeView). EyeView's case study gave that one A/B test, with the video autoplaying for first-time visitors, as an 86 percent increase (EyeView).

How it changed. EyeView's 2010 white paper said that "in some cases" the boost was over 80% (EyeView white paper). It reported the eToro split test, earlier told as 20%, as almost 32 percent (EyeView white paper). By August 2010 Unbounce, a landing-page software seller, wrote that "a study by eyeviewdigital.com shows that using video on landing pages can increase conversion by 80%" (Unbounce, 2010 capture). That dropped "in some cases" and the single-client scope. The massage and spa pages above dropped EyeView and credit HubSpot or Forbes instead.

What to use instead. Unbounce's own August 2021 look at about 35,000 customer landing pages in each of three periods from late 2020 to early 2021 (Unbounce) found that video had a minimal or negative effect on landing page conversion, whatever the page's goal (Unbounce). Its ten industries did not include massage. A massage business that wants a number should test its own booking page.

"There are 9,000+ illicit massage businesses making $2.5 billion a year" (or 7,000, 11,000)

The claim as repeated. A Louisville Metro Council ordinance filed in October 2025 says, citing the Polaris Project, that "new research finds an estimated 9,000-plus of these businesses" operate in every state, earning nearly $2.5 billion a year (Louisville Metro Council). The research it calls new was published in January 2018. An IISE Transactions paper by North Carolina State University researchers opens with "an estimated 11,000 illicit massage businesses" and credits Heyrick Research (IISE Transactions).

Where it came from. Polaris, an anti-trafficking advocacy nonprofit that runs the National Human Trafficking Hotline, is the source of the 9,000 and $2.5 billion figures. The earliest form we found is a Polaris blog post of December 21, 2015: "open source data indicate that there are around 9,000" such businesses in the U.S., with no dataset named (Polaris, 2015 capture). Polaris's March 2017 Typology of Modern Slavery said "research suggests there are at least 7,000 storefronts" of illicit massage, health and beauty businesses, "and possibly far more" (Polaris Typology). A Polaris fact sheet created in September 2017 and hosted on justice.gov gave a range of 7,500 to 9,000 (Polaris fact sheet) and said the average business "can net around $250,000 in a year", based on businesses closed by police (Polaris fact sheet).

What the 2018 report measured. Polaris's January 2018 report, Human Trafficking in Illicit Massage Businesses, rounded the range to "more than 9,000 illicit massage parlors currently open for business" (Polaris report) and put their revenue at approximately $2.5 billion a year (Polaris report page). Its methodology says the count began from a commercial-sex buyer review site, filtered to drop businesses reviewed as legitimate or with no reviews, then expanded with Thomson Reuters CLEAR, business records, news, tax filings, massage board data, Yelp, Groupon and map data. Analysts compiled more than 60,000 pieces of data (Polaris report). The report said the most popular buyer review site alone listed more than 7,200 open and active businesses (Polaris report). It was network mapping by an advocacy group, not a random sample or an official count, and it gives no error range.

Where the $2.5 billion came from. The revenue is arithmetic on assumptions. Endnote 3 calls it "a very conservative financial estimate" from a national average of 2 women per business, an average of 12 men visiting a day and $60 per visit, so a business "can easily make $250,000 per year" (Polaris report, endnote 3). The report adds that Vanessa Bouché found Houston's illicit massage industry took in $107 million a year and extrapolated a potential national figure of $2.8 billion (Polaris report).

The 11,000 figure. Heyrick Research, a counter-trafficking nonprofit, wrote that it assessed the industry "as of June 2021" at over 11,000 illicit massage businesses across all 50 states. Its summary page does not describe the method (Heyrick Research, 2021 capture).

What to use instead. No official count of illicit massage businesses exists. Each of these figures should be given with its counter, its date and its method: Polaris's 9,000 as an advocacy group's 2017 network-mapping estimate, the $2.5 billion as an estimate built on assumed customers and prices, and Heyrick's 11,000 as a 2021 assessment. For enforcement, Florida's complaint and discipline counts for massage establishments in the registry section of this page are counted records: 727 complaints under the law requiring a human-trafficking reporting procedure in fiscal year 2024-25, and 9 disciplinary actions.

Every popular claim our research pages trace, 724 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 massage therapy 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 603 figures from 79 publishers.

On November 4, 2026, each sourced figure on this page was re-fetched with the fetch cache cleared and matched against the recorded wording: BLS occupation wage estimates (through the BLS data API), QCEW, Employment Projections, the Occupational Outlook Handbook and the Current Population Survey; Census Nonemployer Statistics and the 2022 Economic Census product lines (through the Census data API); the franchise disclosure documents of Massage Envy, Hand and Stone, Elements Massage, MassageLuXe, Woodhouse, The NOW, Spavia and Massage Heights in Minnesota’s public CARDS database and XWELL’s 10-K; the massage statutes and board rules of Florida, Texas, New York, Illinois, Arizona, North Carolina, Nevada and Minnesota, FSMTB’s table of state requirements and the Interstate Massage Compact site; Florida Department of Health annual reports and the counts published by TDLR, New York’s Office of the Professions, CAMTC and FSMTB; peer-reviewed studies and Cochrane, AHRQ and VA evidence reviews (PubMed abstracts re-read through NCBI’s E-utilities, because pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov refuses automated requests), and NCCIH and NCHS reports; the reports and posts of ClassPass, MassageBook, Fresha, Google and YouTube; AMTA, ABMP and ISPA surveys and fact sheets; and the pages behind each popular claim. Where a site refuses automated requests we read an Internet Archive copy. Our licence counts come from the Florida Department of Health licence search and the Colorado, Connecticut, Washington and Delaware open licence files, our location-page figures from pages we read one at a time, our 10-K phrase counts from EDGAR full-text search, and our YouTube figures from the YouTube Data API. We left out Vagaro, several news repeaters of the illicit-business figure, and Ohio’s and Washington’s statute sites (robots.txt blocks AI agents; FSMTB’s table is used for those states), Massage Envy’s and Massage Heights’ websites (bot checks), Florida’s bulk licence download and Texas’s licence files (sign-in or robots rules), AMTA’s fact sheet PDF (its folder is closed to crawlers) and OpenStreetMap counts (the Overpass server was down).

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 481 videos are what YouTube's search returned for 'massage therapy', 'massage' and 'deep tissue massage' (the top 200 of each, sorted by views, with no country filter) on November 4, 2026. It is not a census of massage video, view counts are lifetime snapshots that include views from ads, and we classified 257 channels by hand from their public text. A few videos dominate: one 14-second chiropractic short holds 11.6% of all the views and one head-massage edit 10.8%, and one Montreal therapist draws 24.2% of the massage-business views, so we give those shares with and without the largest channel.
• Location pages are templated. Six franchises publish a page per location that we could read (204 pages, up to 40 per brand); within a brand most features are set by its template, so the shares describe six brands, not the independent therapists and sole proprietors who make up most of the trade. Massage Envy, the largest franchise, could not be included because its robots.txt request was blocked by a bot check.
• Massage businesses have no industry code of their own. BLS and Census count massage businesses inside NAICS 812199 (other personal care services, with tanning, tattoo and other trades), 621399 (offices of other health practitioners) and 812112 (beauty salons and day spas), so the business counts on this page describe those whole industries. The Economic Census product lines count what employer businesses sold, leave out sole proprietors and undercount massage in health offices. BLS’s payroll survey leaves out the self-employed, Employment Projections adds them, and the household survey counts people by their main job with sampling error.
• Licence counts count licences, not working therapists. An active or practicing licence shows the right to work, not a job; out-of-state holders are included unless we say otherwise; and the Florida licence search’s county filter overlaps (its 67 county totals add up to more than the statewide total), so the three-county shares are taken against the sum of the county totals. States license different things (Minnesota licenses no one, California certifies voluntarily), so their totals are not directly comparable.
• Most survey and platform figures come from the profession or from sellers. AMTA commissions its consumer polls (about 1,000 adults online) and publishes no sample size or field dates for its profession survey; ABMP sells insurance to its members and gives no sample sizes; ISPA is a spa trade body; franchisors’ Item 19 sales figures are reported by franchisees and unaudited; and booking apps describe their own customers without saying how many massage businesses sit behind a figure.
• Health evidence is mostly low or moderate certainty. Most reviews pool small, short trials with varied methods and controls; we quote each review’s own certainty wording. The video-taught massage trials are small and lost many participants.
• Illicit massage business counts are estimates. Polaris and Heyrick Research are advocacy and research nonprofits whose counts start from online listings and network mapping; no government publishes a count.

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/massage-therapy-video-statistics#DRV-202. To cite the page as a whole:

Mark Studios. "Massage Therapy Video Statistics." Last verified Nov 4, 2026. https://www.markstudios.com/research/massage-therapy-video-statistics

@misc{markstudios_massage_therapy_video_statistics_2026,
  author = {{Mark Studios}},
  title = {{Massage Therapy Video Statistics}},
  year = {2026},
  month = nov,
  url = {https://www.markstudios.com/research/massage-therapy-video-statistics},
  note = {Last verified 2026-11-04}
}

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. Florida Department of Health, Division of Medical Quality Assurance, Florida Department of Health Division of Medical Quality Assurance Annual Report and Long-Range Plan, Fiscal Year 2024-25 (2025-10-31). Accessed 2026-11-04.
2. Florida Department of Health, Division of Medical Quality Assurance, Florida Department of Health Division of Medical Quality Assurance Annual Report and Long-Range Plan, Fiscal Year 2023-24 (2024-10-28). Accessed 2026-11-04.
3. Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, Texas Department of Licensing & Regulation: Massage Therapy at a Glance (2026-02-23). Accessed 2026-11-04.
4. New York State Education Department, Office of the Professions, License Statistics for Massage Therapy (2026-07-01). Accessed 2026-11-04.
5. California Massage Therapy Council (CAMTC), Chairperson's Message (undated). Accessed 2026-11-04.
6. Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards (FSMTB), FSMTB Annual Report 2025 (2025-10-03). Accessed 2026-11-04.
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171. American Massage Therapy Association (AMTA, professional association; earlier edition via Internet Archive), Consumer Views & Use of Massage Therapy (2018). Accessed 2026-11-04.
172. American Massage Therapy Association (AMTA, professional association; earlier edition via Internet Archive), Massage Therapy Industry Fact Sheet (2017 edition) (2017-02-23). Accessed 2026-11-04.
173. Biotone (massage lotion and supplies seller; blog for massage and spa practices), Strengthen the connection with spa and massage practice clients with video content (2017-01-19). Accessed 2026-11-04.
174. DaySmart Spa (spa and salon booking software seller), Spa Marketing Strategies (2021-06-14). Accessed 2026-11-04.
175. EyeView Digital (video production and testing vendor; sold the videos it tested), EyeView - The new "Conversion" game (2008-12-04). Accessed 2026-11-04.
176. EyeView Digital (video production and testing vendor; sold the videos it tested), UMOO - a prime beef example of EyeView's success (2009-02-10). Accessed 2026-11-04.
177. EyeView Digital (video production and testing vendor; sold the videos it tested), Another video conversion success story (2009-11-10). Accessed 2026-11-04.
178. EyeView Digital (video production and testing vendor; sold the videos it tested), Case study: TutorVista (2009). Accessed 2026-11-04.
179. EyeView Digital (video production and testing vendor; sold the videos it tested), Making Video Accountable (EyeView white paper) (2010). Accessed 2026-11-04.
180. Unbounce (landing-page software seller), The benefits of using video on landing pages (2010-08). Accessed 2026-11-04.
181. Unbounce (landing-page software seller; analysis of its own customers' pages), Video on landing pages means more conversions, right? Wrong. Here's why (2021-08-26). Accessed 2026-11-04.
182. Louisville Metro Council (ordinance sponsored by Council Member Jeff Hudson), Ordinance No. ___, Series 2025, regarding massage facilities (2025-10-31). Accessed 2026-11-04.
183. IISE Transactions (Tobey, Li, Özaltın, Mayorga and Caltagirone, North Carolina State University); NSF Public Access Repository copy, Interpretable models for the automated detection of human trafficking in illicit massage businesses (2022). Accessed 2026-11-04.
184. Polaris (anti-trafficking advocacy nonprofit; operates the National Human Trafficking Hotline), Challenging the Reality of Human Trafficking in Illicit Massage Businesses (2015-12-21). Accessed 2026-11-04.
185. Polaris (anti-trafficking advocacy nonprofit; operates the National Human Trafficking Hotline), The Typology of Modern Slavery (2017-03). Accessed 2026-11-04.
186. Polaris (anti-trafficking advocacy nonprofit; operates the National Human Trafficking Hotline), hosted on justice.gov, Human Trafficking in Illicit Massage Businesses (fact sheet) (2017-09-01). Accessed 2026-11-04.
187. Polaris (anti-trafficking advocacy nonprofit; operates the National Human Trafficking Hotline), Human Trafficking in Illicit Massage Businesses (full report) (2018-01). Accessed 2026-11-04.
188. Polaris (anti-trafficking advocacy nonprofit; operates the National Human Trafficking Hotline), Massage Parlor Trafficking Report: Human Trafficking in Illicit Massage Businesses (2018-01). Accessed 2026-11-04.
189. Heyrick Research (counter-trafficking nonprofit focused on illicit massage), What is the Illicit Massage Industry? (2021). Accessed 2026-11-04.

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 4, 2026: First published with 603 figures from 79 publishers, each checked against its original source.
• Nov 4, 2026: Reworded four takeaways and one answer for clarity: the 2022 Census receipts as $4.52 billion, the Palm Beach, Broward and Martin share of county-matched licences, the source of the $18 billion figure, and the Florida law behind the 727 trafficking-procedure complaints. No figure changed.