How to Start a Laundromat Business
Most guides on how to start a laundromat business lead with a number. The trouble is that those numbers disagree with each other wildly, they are describing the same business, and not one of them cites a source you can check.
Almost every cost here is set by your local market: the equipment quote, the lease, the utility upgrade, what an operating store sells for near you. Exactly one is knowable to the dollar today, and it is the one every guide leaves out. This page covers the cost drivers, revenue, the legal setup, financing, and the operating calls that decide whether it survives.
Key Takeaways
- Startup cost turns on one fork: buying a laundromat that already runs, or building one from an empty shell.
- No trustworthy national average exists for revenue, so learn the arithmetic and audit the utility bills instead.
- State LLC filing fees run $35 to $500, and the recurring annual cost is a separate number entirely.
- Form the LLC before you sign the lease, not after.
- Companies formed in the United States are now exempt from BOI reporting.
How Much Does It Cost to Start a Laundromat Business?
Startup cost turns on one fork: buying a laundromat that already runs, or building one from an empty shell. Equipment, plumbing and utility service, build-out and working capital set the number, and your local market sets those. The one cost you can know today is the state LLC filing fee, which runs $35 to $500.
The question of how to open a laundromat comes down to that same fork. Buying an existing laundromat means paying for cash flow, a customer base and an existing lease, plus whatever condition the machines are in. Building means controlling the layout and carrying months of rent before a single load runs.
The most underestimated of those is the plumbing, gas and electrical service, because a retail shell that never held a laundry usually cannot carry the water and power load without an upgrade. Working capital is the one first-timers skip.
Every laundromat cost estimate you read online is a guess about those four items in someone else's market. Before you start a laundromat business, price them from your own quotes. The monthly cost to run a laundromat follows the same rule: utilities, rent, maintenance and payroll are local.
How Much Does a Laundromat Make?
There is no reliable national average, and the figures published online disagree wildly. Revenue is machine count times turns per machine per day times price per turn, plus dryers, wash and fold, and vending. For a store you are buying, the seller's water and gas bills are the number that cannot be dressed up.
That is the whole diligence process in one line. Collection records can be presented optimistically; water consumption cannot. Twelve months of utility bills tell you roughly how many loads ran, and if claimed revenue implies more wash volume than the meter supports, you have your answer.
So when someone asks how much does a laundromat make a month, the useful reply is a question back: how many machines, how many turns, at what price, in what neighborhood. A twelve-machine store on a quiet street and a forty-machine store beside dense rental housing are not the same business, and how much does a laundromat make a year will differ just as widely.
Gross takings are a different question from owner income, which is why how much do laundromat owners make varies so widely between stores that look identical from the sidewalk. Utilities and machine downtime move most, and a broken washer earns nothing while still owing rent. Model how much profit does a laundromat make, not the top line.
The Legal Step to Take Before You Start a Laundromat Business
A coin laundry is a public premises full of water, heat and heavy machinery, often open with nobody on site. That risk profile is why most owners hold one inside a limited liability company rather than operating it personally.
The part no guide prints is what that costs. Here is what the state charges, from our corrected fee data.
| State | To File | Recurring Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Montana | $35 | $20 annual report |
| Kentucky | $40 | $15 annual report, plus the Limited Liability Entity Tax at a $175 minimum |
| Michigan | $50 | $25 annual statement, due February 15 |
| California | $70 | $20 Statement of Information every two years, plus a mandatory $800 annual franchise tax |
| Ohio | $99 | No annual report |
| Texas | $300 | No Secretary of State annual report, but an annual franchise tax report is required |
| Massachusetts | $500 | $500 annual report, every year |
Read the two columns as unrelated numbers. California is the second cheapest state here to open and one of the most expensive to keep: $70 once, then $800 every year, whether the store earns anything or not. Kentucky looks like the cheapest in the country at $40 until the $175 minimum tax lands. Arkansas is $45 to file and $150 every year. Ohio charges $99 and asks for no annual report.
For a business you intend to hold for a decade on thin margins, the recurring column matters more. Check what your state charges before you budget, see the wider picture of what an LLC costs, and follow the process in our guide on how to start an LLC.
Three more things belong in this step. Every state requires a registered agent with a physical in-state address, which cannot be a PO box. You need an EIN once you hire staff, take on a partner, or pay sales and excise taxes. The IRS issues it free and immediately online, and warns on its page to beware of sites that charge for one, so apply for an EIN through the IRS directly. And on BOI reporting: guides written before 2026 tell owners to file a beneficial ownership report with FinCEN, but under FinCEN's final rule companies created in the United States are exempt. That rule has changed several times, so confirm the current position on FinCEN's site.
Most people who start a laundromat business do it alone. If someone else funds the deal, that partner makes the company a multi-member LLC, which changes its default federal tax classification and makes the operating agreement the document deciding who receives what when the store throws off cash. The difference between single-member and multi-member LLCs is worth settling before the money moves, and a CPA can confirm the tax side.
Ready to put the entity in place? Form your LLC with FormationHub.
Form Your LLC Before You Sign the Lease
This is the sequencing mistake that costs the most, and most owners who start a laundromat business make it by signing for the space first.
A commercial laundry lease is usually the largest and longest obligation in the deal, and it carries build-out and utility commitments on top of rent. Signed before the LLC exists, it is signed personally, and the liability protection you formed the company to get does not reach backwards to cover it. Assigning it to the entity later needs the landlord's consent, which a landlord holding your personal signature has little reason to give.
A second ordering rule comes from the IRS: form the entity with your state before applying for the EIN, or the application may be delayed. The clean sequence is entity, EIN, bank account, then lease and licenses.
Licenses, Permits and Insurance for a Laundromat
Licensing is genuinely local, so treat the list below as questions for your city and county rather than a national checklist of what it takes to start a laundromat business.
Most owners deal with a general business license, a sales tax or seller's permit, fire and building permits, water or wastewater discharge approval, and a sign permit. Wash and fold often adds health department approval. Our guide to business license costs covers the range.
On insurance, expect general liability, property coverage, and workers' compensation once you have employees. Ask the licensing office what applies before you sign the lease, because a site that cannot get wastewater approval is not a site.
How to Start a Laundromat With No Money
You cannot open a laundromat with nothing, because deposits, permits and the first months of utilities all come due before revenue does. What you can do is cut the cash required through seller financing, an SBA 7(a) loan, equipment financing, or a partner who funds the deal while you operate it.
Seller financing is common here because many sellers are retiring operators who would rather hold an income stream than a lump sum. An SBA 7(a) loan is the other main route and fits this purchase well: SBA puts the maximum at $5 million, and eligible uses include machinery and equipment, real estate, working capital, and changes of ownership, the category covering the purchase of an existing store.
Every one of those routes wants a laundromat business plan with real projections attached. Write it before you approach anyone for the money to start a laundromat business.
How to Run a Laundromat: Model, Location and Equipment
Three business models exist: unattended, attended, and hybrid. Unattended carries no payroll but every open, close and clean falls to you. Location decides the rest, and two things quietly kill a site: zoning that does not permit commercial laundry, and water or electrical service that cannot carry the machine load.
Both are cheap to check and expensive to discover late. Ask the city about zoning and have a plumber and electrician look at the service before you commit, because upgrading either after signing is your cost.
Operators who start a laundromat business well take the obvious questions seriously: renter density over homeowner density, street visibility, and parking. On washers and dryers, new versus used is a maintenance-risk decision more than a price one, and used machines raise the odds of a dead washer next winter.
Is a Laundromat a Good Investment?
Laundromats have real structural advantages: demand does not disappear in a downturn, customers pay on the spot, and there are no receivables to chase. The trade is that it is not passive income. Utilities and machine downtime decide your margin, and the lease is a long fixed obligation.
So is owning a laundromat profitable? For operators who buy the right store at the right price and keep the machines running, yes. Is a laundromat a good business to be in? For the right owner, also yes, with one caveat: starting a laundromat is not a hands-off move, at least not in year one. The owners who do well treat it as an operating business first.
Disclaimer: FormationHub is not a law firm or an accounting firm, and this article is general information, not legal or tax advice. Filing fees, processing times, and state requirements change. Confirm the current requirements with your state's filing office or the IRS before you file, and talk to a licensed attorney or CPA about your specific situation.