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Most published market sizes are vendor estimates. Free federal data is more precise.

Pest Control Market Size: What the Government Data Actually Shows

US pest control services took in $21.5 billion in 2022 per Census data. Why private global estimates range from $25B to $28B, and which numbers to trust.

10 min read

The most reliable pest control number anyone can verify for free is the US Census Bureau's Service Annual Survey, which put revenue for US employer firms in NAICS 56171, Exterminating and Pest Control Services, at $21.47 billion in 2022, up from $10.86 billion in 2013. The 2023 County Business Patterns counted 16,535 US pest control establishments employing 139,150 people with $7.44 billion in annual payroll. Private research firms publish "global pest control market" figures between roughly $25 billion and $28 billion for 2024–2025, but those estimates come from paywalled reports with different scopes, and at least one of them implies a North American market smaller than what the Census measures in the US alone. Treat vendor numbers as marketing, and the federal series as data.

The earlier version of this article led with a single figure — $24.9 billion globally in 2023, growing 5.7% a year through 2028 — presented as the market size. That number is real: it comes from a MarketsandMarkets press release published in August 2023. But it is one firm's estimate of a scope that includes residential, commercial, industrial, and livestock applications worldwide, the methodology behind it is not public, and it is now several years stale. Presenting it as a settled fact was the mistake, not the citation.

What US Federal Data Measures

Two free federal programs track the industry directly, using the North American Industry Classification System code for exterminating and pest control services.

  • Revenue. The Census Bureau's Service Annual Survey reports revenue for employer firms in NAICS 56171. The published series runs $10.86 billion (2013), $13.09 billion (2017), $16.39 billion (2019), $17.61 billion (2020), $20.44 billion (2021), and $21.47 billion (2022), the most recent year in the current table package. That is a compound annual growth rate of about 7.9% over the nine years from 2013, and about 10.4% a year over the five years from 2017 — faster than most vendor forecasts assume.
  • Establishments, employment, and payroll. County Business Patterns for 2023 counted 16,535 establishments, 139,150 employees during the week of March 12, 2023, and $7.44 billion in annual payroll in NAICS 561710.
  • Wages and occupations. The Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics for May 2025 put employment in NAICS 561710 at 154,470, with an annual mean wage of $51,220 across all occupations in the industry. Pest control workers specifically accounted for 96,000 of those jobs at a mean of $46,010 and a median of $44,930.

Both Census programs have a known gap: County Business Patterns and the Service Annual Survey cover employer businesses, so one-person operators with no payroll are not in those counts. The real number of firms doing pest work is therefore higher than 16,535.

The Industry Is Mostly Small Businesses

The size distribution is the most useful thing in the CBP file, and it is the opposite of the picture the old article painted.

Of those 16,535 establishments in 2023, 9,415 — about 57% — had fewer than five employees. Another 2,854 had five to nine. Only 59 establishments nationwide had 100 or more employees, and only three had 500 to 999. The branch office model means a national company shows up as many small establishments, but the point stands: the typical pest control business in America is a handful of people and a few trucks.

Publicly traded operators confirm the scale from the other direction. Rollins, Inc., the parent of Orkin, reported $3.76 billion in revenue for fiscal 2025 in its annual report to the SEC, according to the agency's XBRL company facts data. That is a large company by any measure, and still a minority share of the US services market the Census measures. If you are comparing a quote from a national brand against a local operator, what exterminators actually charge for roach work is a more useful reference than any market-size chart.

Why Published Market Sizes Disagree So Much

Here are four current vendor estimates, each taken from a page we opened and read:

  • Emergen Research (accessed 2026): $28.0 billion in 2025, reaching $49.3 billion by 2035, a 5.8% CAGR for 2026–2035.
  • Straits Research (accessed 2026): $27.2 billion in 2025, reaching $42.93 billion by 2034, a 5.2% CAGR for 2026–2034, with North America holding 38.2% share in 2025.
  • SkyQuest Technology (accessed 2026): $25.06 billion in 2024, reaching $43.06 billion by 2033, a 6.2% CAGR for 2026–2033.
  • MarketsandMarkets (2023): $24.9 billion in 2023, reaching $32.8 billion by 2028, a 5.7% CAGR.

Run the arithmetic on the second one. If the global market was $27.2 billion in 2025 and North America is 38.2% of it, North America is roughly $10.4 billion. The Census Bureau measured $21.5 billion in US employer-firm revenue three years earlier. Both cannot describe the same thing. The reasons they diverge are worth understanding, because they apply to every market-size claim you will read:

  1. Scope. Some reports count only professional services. Others fold in retail pesticide products, agricultural and livestock treatment, fumigation, and wildlife control. Product-market reports and service-market reports are different universes with the same name.
  2. Revenue versus value. "Market value" sometimes means end-customer spending, sometimes manufacturer shipments, sometimes something in between. A dollar of retail insecticide and a dollar of quarterly service contract are not interchangeable.
  3. Geography and informal work. Much of the world's pest control is unbilled, informal, or performed by property staff. Estimating that is guesswork, and different firms guess differently.
  4. Paywalled methods. The sample, the base year, the currency conversion, and the segmentation live inside a report that costs thousands of dollars. Nothing in the free summary can be checked.

None of that makes these firms dishonest. It makes their headline numbers unsuitable for citation as fact, which is exactly how they usually get cited.

Where the Work Actually Is

Geography is one area where federal data beats regional hand-waving. BLS state estimates for May 2025 show pest control worker employment concentrated in the warm, humid South and Southwest:

  • Florida: 12,400 workers, a location quotient of 1.89 — the highest concentration in the country
  • Texas: 9,470
  • Georgia: 5,770
  • North Carolina: 4,870
  • New York: 4,220
  • Tennessee: 3,340, Arizona: 3,200, South Carolina: 2,660, Alabama: 2,540

A location quotient near 1.9 means Florida has roughly twice the share of pest control jobs you would expect from its overall employment. That tracks with climate and building stock rather than with consumer preference, and it is consistent with what residents report about how common roaches are in Florida.

What the Growth Numbers Mean for a Homeowner

Market-size articles rarely answer the question a homeowner actually has, so here it is plainly.

  • Prices have risen faster than volume. Census revenue grew about 10.4% a year from 2017 to 2022 while BLS projects only 6% employment growth for pest control workers over the decade from 2025, per the Occupational Outlook Handbook. More revenue per worker usually means higher prices and more recurring contracts, not a bigger workforce.
  • Recurring service is the business model. Quarterly and bimonthly plans, not one-time calls, are what produce steady growth. That is worth knowing when a salesperson presents an annual agreement as the only option — there is a real question of how often an exterminator should actually spray for your specific problem.
  • Labor is not the expensive part. A median wage of about $45,000 and a mean near $46,000 for pest control workers means most of what you pay covers routing, insurance, licensing, chemicals, and overhead. Price differences between companies are rarely about technician skill alone, and the products professionals actually use are largely the same across the industry.
  • DIY is legal but regulated. BLS notes that state law requires pest control workers to be licensed. Homeowners treating their own property generally are not, but the federal pesticide label still governs you: under FIFRA, using a pesticide in a manner inconsistent with its labeling is illegal. If you are going that route, doing your own pest control safely covers the limits.

What To Do With a Market-Size Claim

When you see a pest control market figure in an article, a pitch deck, or a franchise brochure, three questions settle whether it is usable:

  1. Who published it, and can you open the page? A figure attributed to "industry reports" with no named firm is not a citation.
  2. What is the scope? Services only, or products too? Residential, or agricultural as well? Global, or one country?
  3. Is there a free government series that covers the same ground? For the US, there almost always is. Census Bureau County Business Patterns, the Service Annual Survey, and BLS OEWS are public, updated annually, and documented.

Frequently Asked Questions

How big is the US pest control industry?

The most defensible figure is the Census Bureau's Service Annual Survey: $21.47 billion in revenue for US employer firms in NAICS 56171 in 2022, the latest year published. County Business Patterns counted 16,535 establishments and 139,150 employees in 2023.

Is the global pest control market $25 billion or $28 billion?

Both figures appear in current vendor reports, along with values in between. Emergen Research says $28.0 billion for 2025, Straits Research $27.2 billion for 2025, and SkyQuest $25.06 billion for 2024. There is no authoritative global figure, because no government agency measures a global pest control market.

What is the pest control industry's CAGR?

Vendor forecasts cluster between about 5% and 6.5% annually. Actual measured US growth was higher: roughly 7.9% a year from 2013 to 2022 and 10.4% a year from 2017 to 2022, based on Census Service Annual Survey revenue. Forecast CAGRs are assumptions; the Census series is a measurement.

How many pest control companies are there in the US?

County Business Patterns counted 16,535 employer establishments in 2023. That excludes sole proprietors with no employees, so the total number of businesses performing pest work is higher.

What do pest control technicians earn?

The BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook reports a median annual wage of $45,250 for pest control workers as of May 2025, about $21.75 an hour. Within the exterminating and pest control services industry specifically, OEWS put the May 2025 mean at $46,010.

Is the industry growing because of climate change?

That claim is common in vendor reports and is plausible for specific pests and ranges, but the federal data cited here does not measure cause. What the data does show is revenue growing faster than employment, which points at least as much to pricing and contract structure as to pest pressure.

Where can I check these numbers myself?

All of them are free. County Business Patterns and the Service Annual Survey are published by the Census Bureau; OEWS and the Occupational Outlook Handbook by the Bureau of Labor Statistics; and public company revenue through the SEC's EDGAR database.

Sources

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