RESEARCH / NAICS 611610 / 2023 DATA
U.S. Fine Arts School Statistics
The U.S. had 16,284 fine arts school locations with paid employees in 2023. This is a useful benchmark for dance operators, but it also includes music, drama, and art instruction. It is not a dance-only market count.
The fine arts school employer footprint
- Employer establishments (2023):
- 16,284
- Employees (mid-March 2023):
- 127,068
- Employer locations, change since 2019:
- +5.2%
What is being counted: Fine arts schools (NAICS 611610) includes dance, music, drama, and art instruction. These figures are not a dance-only count and exclude businesses without paid employees. Census: definition of fine arts schools, NAICS 611610.
- 16,284 employer locations supported 127,068 employees in 2023, with $2,515,444,000 in annual payroll. Employees include all occupations; payroll is not revenue. Census: 2023 County Business Patterns.
- 50.4% of employer locations had fewer than five employees. That is 8,208 of 16,284 establishments in the published size bands. Small does not mean new, owner-operated, or unprofitable. Census: 2023 County Business Patterns.
- California had the most employer locations (2,336), but Vermont led on locations per resident. Vermont had 8.95 per 100,000 residents, compared with 4.84 nationally. This is our calculation from Census: 2023 County Business Patterns and Census: state population estimates, Vintage 2025.
Industry reference year: 2023, the latest CBP and NES releases found during this review. Population denominator: July 2023, revised in Vintage 2025. The publication date is not the data year.
Locations and employment grew at different rates
Between 2019 and 2023, fine arts school employer establishments increased from 15,483 to 16,284, an increase of 5.2%. Over the same period, employment rose from 112,043 to 127,068, up 13.4%. Calculations use the annual CBP national files listed in the source manifest.
By 2023, both published measures were above their 2019 levels. The category spans several kinds of instruction, so this growth cannot be attributed specifically to dance studios. Nor does a higher location count tell us whether individual schools became more profitable.
| Year | Employer locations | Employees | Annual payroll | Locations with <5 employees |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 15,483 | 112,043 (G) | $1,924,585,000 (G) | 8,395 |
| 2020 | 15,714 | 115,178 (G) | $1,739,441,000 (G) | 8,424 |
| 2021 | 15,531 | 101,495 (G) | $1,955,469,000 (G) | 8,647 |
| 2022 | 15,991 | 119,606 (G) | $2,323,136,000 (G) | 8,289 |
| 2023 | 16,284 | 127,068 (G) | $2,515,444,000 (G) | 8,208 |
Employment is measured around mid-March, not averaged across the year. Annual payroll covers the calendar year and is not inflation-adjusted. G/H/J flags reflect Census disclosure protection; see methodology. Net establishment change is not a startup birth or survival rate.
Fine arts school statistics by state
Vermont (8.95), Massachusetts (8.50), Utah (8.20) lead the 50-state comparison for employer locations per 100,000 residents. Population adjustment changes the picture from a ranking by raw business count. Census: 2023 County Business Patterns; Census: state population estimates, Vintage 2025.
A high ratio can reflect many different conditions, including local demand, tourism, or business structure. We have not tested those explanations. It is not a ranking of the best places to start a studio, and state averages can hide large differences between cities.
51 of 51 areas
| State / district | Employer locations | Per 100,000 residents | Locations, 2019-2023 change | Employees |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | 153 | 2.99 | +1.3% | 1,042 (G) |
| Alaska | 39 | 5.31 | +5.4% | 226 (G) |
| Arizona | 281 | 3.77 | +7.3% | 1,790 (G) |
| Arkansas | 107 | 3.49 | +12.6% | 545 (G) |
| California | 2,336 | 5.96 | +17.7% | 21,002 (G) |
| Colorado | 377 | 6.38 | +4.7% | 2,612 (G) |
| Connecticut | 275 | 7.55 | +6.2% | 2,065 (G) |
| Delaware | 55 | 5.31 | +5.8% | 466 (H) |
| District of Columbia | 41 | 6.01 | -8.9% | 568 (H) |
| Florida | 896 | 3.91 | +6.7% | 4,426 (G) |
| Georgia | 400 | 3.62 | +3.1% | 2,252 (G) |
| Hawaii | 59 | 4.11 | -10.6% | 319 (H) |
| Idaho | 76 | 3.86 | +24.6% | 524 (G) |
| Illinois | 644 | 5.10 | -2.4% | 5,755 (G) |
| Indiana | 262 | 3.81 | +9.6% | 1,887 (G) |
| Iowa | 177 | 5.51 | +8.6% | 1,353 (G) |
| Kansas | 145 | 4.92 | -1.4% | 1,024 (G) |
| Kentucky | 115 | 2.53 | -6.5% | 902 (G) |
| Louisiana | 155 | 3.37 | -4.9% | 1,083 (H) |
| Maine | 66 | 4.71 | +8.2% | 464 (G) |
| Maryland | 292 | 4.71 | -1.4% | 2,234 (G) |
| Massachusetts | 601 | 8.50 | +6.0% | 5,349 (G) |
| Michigan | 319 | 3.17 | +2.6% | 2,222 (G) |
| Minnesota | 279 | 4.85 | -0.7% | 3,426 (G) |
| Mississippi | 59 | 2.01 | -6.3% | 294 (G) |
| Missouri | 246 | 3.96 | -0.4% | 1,962 (G) |
| Montana | 59 | 5.22 | +11.3% | 353 (G) |
| Nebraska | 117 | 5.88 | +5.4% | 1,028 (G) |
| Nevada | 111 | 3.46 | +6.7% | 620 (H) |
| New Hampshire | 112 | 7.99 | +2.8% | 1,007 (G) |
| New Jersey | 707 | 7.53 | +2.0% | 6,045 (G) |
| New Mexico | 61 | 2.88 | -12.9% | 436 (G) |
| New York | 1,421 | 7.18 | -0.8% | 13,301 (G) |
| North Carolina | 488 | 4.49 | -0.2% | 3,061 (G) |
| North Dakota | 30 | 3.81 | +7.1% | 245 (G) |
| Ohio | 439 | 3.72 | +1.9% | 3,363 (G) |
| Oklahoma | 122 | 3.00 | +4.3% | 754 (G) |
| Oregon | 226 | 5.32 | -7.4% | 1,628 (G) |
| Pennsylvania | 579 | 4.45 | +5.1% | 4,919 (G) |
| Rhode Island | 80 | 7.26 | +9.6% | 423 (G) |
| South Carolina | 159 | 2.95 | 0.0% | 893 (G) |
| South Dakota | 47 | 5.12 | +6.8% | 299 (G) |
| Tennessee | 235 | 3.29 | +15.8% | 1,539 (G) |
| Texas | 1,154 | 3.76 | +9.8% | 7,659 (G) |
| Utah | 283 | 8.20 | +6.0% | 3,108 (G) |
| Vermont | 58 | 8.95 | -4.9% | 456 (G) |
| Virginia | 433 | 4.96 | +1.9% | 3,339 (G) |
| Washington | 521 | 6.65 | +10.6% | 4,044 (G) |
| West Virginia | 46 | 2.60 | -6.1% | 219 (G) |
| Wisconsin | 305 | 5.14 | +8.5% | 2,229 (G) |
| Wyoming | 36 | 6.16 | -20.0% | 308 (G) |
Employment includes all occupations. G/H/J are Census noise flags, explained in the methodology. D.C. is included here, but excluded from the 50-state chart ranking. Full payroll, population, and source flags are in the downloads.
What this tells us about dance studios
Fine arts schools provide a defensible benchmark for the broader instructional sector in which many dance studios operate. The Census definition explicitly includes dance instruction, alongside music, drama, and art. But it does not isolate dance in the published six-digit category. Census: definition of fine arts schools, NAICS 611610.
How many dance studios are there in the U.S.?
This dataset cannot answer that precisely. Calling all 16,284 fine arts school locations "dance studios" would overstate what the data say. It would also miss qualifying dance businesses with no paid employees, which are outside CBP.
What about independent teachers?
We do not publish a nonemployer total for fine arts schools here. The detailed NAICS 611610 industry is not separately available in the NES extract used for this report. A broad educational-services total would include unrelated businesses, so we leave those fields unavailable rather than filling the gap with an unsuitable number.
Is this a market-size estimate?
No. The $2,515,444,000 payroll figure is wages paid by employer establishments, not tuition revenue, household spending on lessons, or total market value. A revenue estimate would require a separate source and a clearly matched industry definition.
Sources, definitions & methodology
This is secondary analysis by Circular Studios, not an original survey or a Census-endorsed report. Firecrawl helped locate and check official source pages. The industry tables come from public Census bulk files, not AI estimates or scraped directory totals.
Coverage and extraction
We downloaded national CBP files for 2019-2023 and state files for 2019 and 2023. We selected NAICS 611610, retaining the total legal-form-of-organization row only. Geography is the 50 states and District of Columbia; Puerto Rico and Island Areas are excluded. State employer-establishment counts reconcile to the national total.
CBP uses 2017 NAICS for these years. This report does not attach the broader NES educational-services category to fine arts schools.
Calculations
- Locations per 100,000 residents: 2023 employer establishments / July 1, 2023 resident population x 100,000. We use the revised 2023 population estimate from Vintage 2025, not the 2025 population.
- 2019-2023 percentage change: (2023 value / 2019 value - 1) x 100. This is net change, not business births, closures, or a causal estimate.
- Small-establishment share: published establishments in the fewer-than-five-employees band / all employer establishments x 100.
- Dollar values: source payroll and receipts in thousands of dollars x 1,000. Values are nominal and are not adjusted for inflation. Displayed percentages are rounded; downloadable ratios retain six decimal places.
Disclosure flags and limitations
The historical CBP layout labels G as noise below 2%, H as 2% to less than 5%, and J as 5% or more. We retain published numeric values with these flags, and preserve the flags in the downloads. N, S, or nonnumeric unavailable/suppressed values become null, not zero. CBP historical record layout (2018-2023).
At the time of review, the Census methodology page carried a notice that its guidance was no longer current while Commerce reevaluated noise infusion. We therefore identify the historical record layout used to interpret these 2019-2023 files; we do not claim that the current methodology notice has been resolved. CBP methodology and current notice.
Administrative coverage, industry classification, disclosure protection, and later revisions can affect comparisons. CBP employment counts all occupations at an establishment around mid-March; it is not an annual average, a full-time-equivalent count, or the count of owners. Geography alone cannot establish unmet demand, business quality, profitability, or the effect of AI.
Download the data & cite this report
The data dictionary documents units, fields, and reuse. The selected original records preserve source values before conversion; the source manifest provides original download URLs and SHA-256 checksums. Both shared files cover the two reports in this research release.
Suggested citation
Circular Studios (September 5, 2026). U.S. Fine Arts School Statistics: 2023 data with 2019-2023 trends. Analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data. https://circularstudios.com/research/fine-arts-school-statistics
Our original analysis, compiled extracts, and charts are offered under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Credit Circular Studios and the U.S. Census Bureau, identify any changes, and keep the data year and industry definition with the statistic. We do not claim exclusive rights over the underlying public-domain federal data.
For corrections, source questions, or a chart request, contact Circular Studios. These reports were checked on September 5, 2026; updates require a new source review, not just a changed date.
Source references
Related research
U.S. Photography Business Statistics uses the same employer-data framework, with a different industry definition.
Looking for an actual space? Browse our dance studio directory. Directory coverage is not the statistical universe used in this report.