Every physical location with paid employees in Houston ZIP codes.
Covered market #4
Businesses for sale in Houston, TX
81,292 business establishments operate in Houston, and 34,986 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 12,066 firms.
Local market
What the Houston 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 Houston
- Professional & technical services12,066
- Retail9,520
- Healthcare & social assistance9,444
- Restaurants & accommodation7,640
- Personal & repair services6,123
These five account for 55% of establishments in Houston. 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 Houston, 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 Houston.
The five largest categories split 44,793 businesses between them fairly evenly, with professional and technical services only 1.3× the size of retail. Demand is spread rather than concentrated.
Buy in Houston
34,986 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 Houston
With no dominant industry in Houston, 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 Houston often cannot buy it in one piece. 12,066 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.