How Much Does It Cost to Buy a Laundromat? Prices From 855 Sales and the SBA Loan Math

An existing US laundromat costs about $250,000 to buy at the median, and $287,000 at the 2025 median, based on 855 closed sales from 2021 to 2025. Half of the laundromats that sold went for between 2.72 and 4.50 times their owner earnings, so a small store earning $46,000 a year changes hands for roughly $126,000 to $209,000 and a strong store earning $138,000 for roughly $376,000 to $621,000. With an SBA 7(a) loan on a $287,000 store, the cash a buyer brings to closing is closer to $35,000 before working capital than to the full price.

The price is only half the answer, though. The other half is whether the price in the listing is the price the store is worth, and on laundromats that gap is the widest of any sector we have measured.

How much does it cost to buy a laundromat?

The median laundromat sold for $250,000 across 2021 to 2025, on median revenue of $219,878 and median owner earnings of $76,560. Prices climbed every year of the record, from a median $220,000 in 2021 to $287,000 in 2025. Those are prices for the business: the machines, the lease and the customers. If the seller owns the building, the property is priced separately on top.

Because laundromats trade on a multiple of seller discretionary earnings, the useful way to read price is by store size. The table applies the lower quartile, typical and upper quartile multiples to real earnings levels from the same sold stores:

The 3.27x column is the median sale price divided by median owner earnings, which is the multiple that actually reproduces what the typical store closed at. Where a store lands between the outer columns depends mostly on revenue size, lease term, machine age and whether the revenue can be proven. The full distribution, year by year, is on our laundromat valuation page.

How much money do you need to buy a laundromat?

On a $287,000 laundromat financed with an SBA 7(a) loan, plan on roughly $34,500 of cash for the equity injection and the SBA guaranty fee, plus working capital and closing costs. Here is the arithmetic on the 2025 median sale price:

Two lines in that table deserve a note. The guaranty fee is set by the SBA each fiscal year, and for FY2026 loans between $150,001 and $700,000 it is 3 percent of the guaranteed portion. The working capital line is our own estimate of three months of operating costs for the median store. Your lender will set its own requirement, and a store with old equipment should hold more.

The valuation line depends on the deal. Under the SBA's current rules, a lender has to get an independent valuation when the intangible part of what is financed, after appraised real estate and equipment are taken out, is above $250,000. Laundromats carry a lot of equipment. If the machines on a $287,000 store appraise at $100,000, the intangible portion of a $258,300 loan is about $158,300, and the lender may be allowed to value the business in house. The lender engages the appraiser either way, so a valuation you commission yourself will not substitute for it. Our guide to business valuation for an SBA loan covers the threshold in detail, and what a business valuation costs compares the options if you need one.

Can you get an SBA loan for a laundromat?

Yes, and on typical numbers the loan works. A $258,300 SBA 7(a) loan over 10 years at 10.5 percent costs about $41,824 a year. The median 2025 laundromat earned $77,104 for its owner, which covers that payment 1.84 times, comfortably above the 1.25x coverage most lenders look for. That leaves about $35,280 a year before the owner's own pay, equipment replacement and taxes.

The constraint is the owner draw. Run the same math on the five-year median store and a buyer who needs $30,000 a year from the laundromat can finance a price of about $255,600. A buyer who needs $50,000 a year can finance only about $145,800. Laundromats sell for close to what a buyer drawing a modest salary can finance, which is why so many are bought by people who keep another job. Rates change with the prime rate, which was reported at 6.75 percent in September 2026, so treat 10.5 percent as a planning figure. Our overview of an SBA loan to buy a business walks through the application.

Here is the whole range on the five-year median store, which earned $76,560 for its owner. The second price column applies when the building is part of the purchase and the loan runs 25 years, so it is an upper bound: in practice only the real estate share of a loan gets the longer term and the lender blends the two.

Computed here at 10.5 percent, 1.25x coverage and a 10 percent injection, before taxes and equipment replacement. The median store sold for $250,000, which sits right at the $30,000 draw row on a 10-year loan. A buyer who wants a full salary from one laundromat either needs the building in the deal, a seller note or a bigger store.

Seller financing can close part of a gap between what a lender will fund and what a seller wants, and it changes the cash needed at closing. The tradeoffs are covered in our note on seller financing a business sale.

Is the asking price of a laundromat what you will pay?

Usually not, and the gap is bigger than the 8 percent most buyers expect. Laundromats that sold closed at an average of 0.92 of their asking price. But laundromats currently for sale ask a median 4.80 times owner earnings, against 3.50 times for stores that actually sold, and they report median owner earnings of $114,500 against $76,560 for sold stores. That is 49.6 percent more earnings, and it is not a timing effect: laundromats sold in 2025 earned a median $77,104.

So a listing can overstate the price twice, once in the multiple and once in the earnings the multiple is applied to. The sellers who actually closed were asking about 3.80 times earnings. A listing at 4.80 times is not a starting point with a little room in it. It is usually a store priced where the market does not trade.

The fix is verification before you make an offer. Ask for three years of tax returns and compare them with the profit and loss statement. Ask for twelve months of bank statements and tie the deposits to reported revenue; if the seller sends them as PDFs, you can convert the bank statement PDFs to Excel and total the deposits by month in a few minutes instead of retyping them. Pull card system reports by machine if the store has one. Compare twelve months of water and gas bills against the volume the seller claims, because water use tracks machine turns. Then recalculate owner earnings yourself, using our guide on how to calculate SDE, and price on your number rather than the listing's.

What costs do buyers forget?

The purchase price and the loan are the visible costs. These are the ones that show up later:

• Machine replacement. If the washers and dryers are near the end of their service life, you are buying a capital bill along with the store. Get the equipment ages in writing and price the replacement into your offer, not into your first year.
• The lease. A laundromat cannot move, and a lender will not amortize a 10 year loan against a short lease. Budget for the legal work of a lease assignment or a new lease, and confirm the remaining term plus options before you pay for anything else.
• Utilities. Water, sewer and gas are the largest variable costs. Rate increases in your city flow straight through to owner earnings.
• Due diligence. Attorney review of the purchase agreement, an accountant's review of the books and the equipment inspection all cost money whether or not the deal closes. Get quotes before you sign a letter of intent. Our template notes on a letter of intent to purchase a business cover the contingencies that protect that spend.

Is buying a laundromat worth it at today's prices?

At the five-year median, the numbers work for a buyer who does not need the store to replace a full salary. The concern is 2025. The average laundromat earnings multiple jumped from 3.50x in 2024 to 4.12x in 2025, a 17.7 percent rise in one year, while median owner earnings rose only 4.2 percent. Buyers are paying more for each dollar of laundromat earnings than at any point in the five-year record.

That does not make a store a bad buy. It means the price should still make sense at the five-year average multiple of 3.65x. If a deal only works at 4.1x, you are paying for demand that can fade without anything changing inside the store. Before you make an offer, run the store's verified revenue and earnings through an estimate and see which column of the table above it belongs in. It takes a few minutes, and on a $287,000 purchase the difference between the typical and the strong column is more than the entire cash you would bring to closing.

The benchmarks in this article come from BizBuySell laundromat and coin laundry sales for 2021 to 2025, retrieved in September 2026. The SBA figures reflect the FY2026 fee schedule. Every result on this site is an educational estimate, not a certified appraisal.