How Many Gas Stations Are in the US: 2026 Census Count

The United States had 109,174 gas stations with paid employees (Census CBP, 2023). Adding the 6,817 gas stations run with no paid employees (Census Nonemployer Statistics, 2023) gives 115,991.

The employer count is falling: it has been lower in every year since 2017. Gas stations with paid employees employ about 1.0 million people (Census CBP, 2023).

Census splits fuel retailing in two, on a single test: whether the site carries convenience merchandise.

Gasoline Stations with Convenience Stores (NAICS 447110) comprises establishments retailing automotive fuels such as diesel, gasohol and gasoline in combination with convenience store or food mart items. Census is explicit that these establishments can be in a convenience store setting or in a gasoline station setting, and that they may also provide automotive repair services. The look of the site does not decide the code; the combination of fuel and merchandise does.

Other Gasoline Stations (NAICS 447190) comprises gasoline stations without convenience stores, primarily retailing automotive fuels, possibly in combination with repair services, oils, replacement parts and accessories, or food services. Census lists truck stops and marine service stations as examples of this code.

That last point surprises people: a truck stop, however large, is classified here rather than with convenience-store stations, and so is a marine fuelling dock.

Working in the other direction, a convenience store without fuel pumps is not a gas station at all. Census classifies it as a convenience store under NAICS 445120, in food retail, and none of the figures on this page include it.

Gasoline stations were renumbered in the 2022 edition of the industry classification. The 2017 code 4471 is 4571 in the new edition, which moved the industry out of the retail trade sequence it had occupied since the classification began.

In practice this matters because the two Census programs used here are on different editions. County Business Patterns still reports on the 2017 codes, while Nonemployer Statistics uses the 2022 codes. Joining the two requires knowing that 4471 and 4571 describe the same industry, and a join done on the code alone silently returns nothing for one of the two.

It is also a warning about any longer comparison. A series that crosses the revision without accounting for it is comparing two differently numbered versions of the same thing, and a series that switches source mid-way may be comparing two different scopes. Where we show a trend for this industry, it is built on a single program and a single code.

Gas stations with paid employees come from County Business Patterns, which counts each location that had payroll during the year, across the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Gas stations with no paid employees come from Nonemployer Statistics, which Census builds from tax records.

The share with a convenience store is our calculation: the convenience-store count divided by all gas stations with paid employees. Nonemployer Statistics does not split owner-run stations by type, which is why the split above covers only stations with employees.

The two programs do not overlap, because a business with any payroll is excluded from the nonemployer file. Both suppress figures that would disclose an individual business, most heavily at detailed geography, so national totals are more complete than the county figures beneath them.