Every physical location with paid employees in Chicago ZIP codes.
Covered market #3
Businesses for sale in Chicago, IL
63,092 business establishments operate in Chicago, and 24,797 of them employ between 5 and 99 people — the range most often bought and sold by individual owners. Professional and technical services leads the local mix with 10,598 firms.
Local market
What the Chicago business base looks like
Large enough to run without the owner on site, small enough for an individual buyer. This is where most transactions happen.
The rest are mostly owner-only businesses, which rarely change hands as going concerns.
Largest industries in Chicago
- Professional & technical services10,598
- Healthcare & social assistance7,699
- Restaurants & accommodation6,857
- Personal & repair services6,564
- Retail6,218
These five account for 60% of establishments in Chicago. A buyer's odds are best where the local base is deepest, and a seller competes with everyone else in the same column.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ZIP Business Patterns 2023. Figures cover the ZIP codes the Postal Service assigns to Chicago, which approximates but does not exactly match the city limits. Establishment counts are locations with paid employees; sole proprietors without employees are not included. Latest available year: 2023.
Buying, selling, combining
No single industry carries Chicago.
The five largest categories split 37,936 businesses between them fairly evenly, with professional and technical services only 1.4× the size of healthcare and social assistance. Demand is spread rather than concentrated.
Buy in Chicago
24,797 businesses here employ 5 to 99 people, so the constraint is filtering, not finding. Set a buy box on industry, price and cash flow and let it do the narrowing.
Search this marketSell in Chicago
With no dominant industry in Chicago, buyers arrive with broader criteria and fewer direct comparisons. A clearly presented business stands out sooner than it would in a concentrated market.
Start an owner listingCombine several into one
Acquirers looking for scale in Chicago often cannot buy it in one piece. 10,598 professional and technical services firms is the kind of depth that lets several be combined into one company big enough for a buyer that would not look at any of them alone.
How combinations workNothing here is a listing or an offer. Confidential details stay behind NDA acceptance and the seller's own consent.