Auto repair and body shops in South Carolina by county

South Carolina had 1,860 auto repair and car care businesses with paid employees in 2023, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's County Business Patterns (CBP). That count combines four industry codes: general automotive repair (NAICS 811111, 1,067 shops), other automotive mechanical and electrical repair (811118, 48 shops), automotive body, paint and interior repair (811121, 475 shops) and car washes (811192, 270). Together they reported 11,537 employees in the March pay period and $538.4 million in annual payroll.

Scaled to the Vintage 2024 population estimate of 5,478,831, that is 3.39 shops per 10,000 residents, or one for every 2,946 people. Across all U.S. counties the same codes total 139,145 businesses, a rate of 4.09 and one for every 2,444 people. South Carolina is about 17 percent below the national rate.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook reports 825,800 automotive service technician and mechanic jobs in 2025, a median pay of $50,620 in May 2025, and projected employment growth of 5 percent from 2025 to 2035. It notes that technicians now work on increasingly complicated mechanical and electronic systems, including electric vehicle batteries and high-voltage systems.

General repair shops account for most of South Carolina's gap with the nation. The state has 1.95 general repair shops per 10,000 residents, compared with 2.47 nationally. Body shops (0.87 versus 0.99) and car washes (0.49 versus 0.55) are closer to the U.S. rate, and specialized mechanical and electrical repair is slightly above it (0.09 versus 0.08).

• Body shops are larger than general repair shops on average: about 6.9 employees each versus 5.1.
• Payroll per employee is about $59,020 at body shops and $49,200 at general repair shops.

Jasper County has the highest density of auto repair and car care businesses in South Carolina, with 21 shops for 35,618 residents (5.90 per 10,000). Cherokee (5.54), Lexington (5.00), Charleston (4.39) and Newberry (4.34) follow, and those five are the only counties above the U.S. rate. Jasper and Cherokee both sit on interstate corridors (I-95 and I-85), which may bring in work from outside the county.

By count, Greenville leads with 208 shops, followed by Charleston (189), Lexington (157), Horry (149) and Spartanburg (138). Auto service is less concentrated than most professional services: Charleston, Richland and Greenville hold 27.6 percent of the state's shops and 26.1 percent of its residents, almost an even share.

Richland County has one of the lower rates among large counties: 116 shops for 430,651 residents, or 2.69 per 10,000. Its shops are the largest in the state, averaging about 9.3 employees each, so service capacity is higher than the shop count suggests. Berkeley (2.31), Aiken (2.57) and Beaufort (2.92) are other large, growing counties below the state rate.

Five counties have no published count: Allendale, Calhoun, Fairfield, McCormick and Marlboro, with 77,650 residents combined. CBP publishes a county cell only when it covers three or more establishments, so each has zero, one or two employer shops in each code. Colleton (1.27) and Clarendon (1.29) have the lowest published rates.

• The six counties that grew 10 percent or more from 2020 to 2024 average 3.40 shops per 10,000 residents, almost exactly the state rate. Growth and shop supply have kept closer pace in auto service than in most professional services.
• Berkeley is the main exception: it grew 15.0 percent and has 2.31 shops per 10,000 residents. Edgefield grew 14.9 percent and has 2.38.

South Carolina shops are somewhat larger than the U.S. pattern. 53.9 percent have fewer than five employees, compared with 59.5 percent nationally. 22.3 percent have five to nine employees and 11.2 percent have 10 to 19, both above the national shares. The average shop has 6.2 employees.

At five to fifteen people, a shop usually has a service writer or front counter handling phone calls, estimates, approvals and pickup updates while technicians work the bays. When the phone rings during a busy stretch, calls go unanswered, and estimate follow-up often depends on someone remembering to call back.

South Carolina has fewer shops per resident than the nation and BLS expects technician employment to keep growing, so demand is not the main constraint for most shops. Capacity and customer communication are. The shops that grow fill their bays with the right work and keep customers coming back for scheduled maintenance.

• In dense markets such as Lexington, Charleston and Spartanburg, reviews, clear pricing communication and fast replies to estimate requests win the comparison shopper.
• In Berkeley, Aiken, Beaufort and Richland, residents have fewer shops per person. A page for each service you offer and an accurate Google Business Profile reach drivers searching nearby.
• Service reminders based on mileage or time bring customers back without paid advertising, which matters most when the bays are the constraint.
• As vehicles add more electronics and electric drivetrains, list the specialties and certifications you have so customers with newer vehicles can find you.

Shop counts show where drivers have choices; call and estimate data shows how many of them a shop actually wins. Monvell's Marketing and Communications teams help auto service businesses get discovered for their specialties, answer every call and follow up on open estimates.

Dataset: U.S. Census Bureau County Business Patterns 2023, county file (cbp23co.txt), NAICS 811111, 811118, 811121 and 811192. CBP covers establishments with paid employees; employment is for the pay period including March 12 and payroll is annual.

Industry codes: the Census Bureau states that CBP data from 2017 to 2023 use 2017 NAICS. That is why this analysis uses 811118 (other automotive mechanical and electrical repair and maintenance) rather than a 2022 NAICS code. If you compare these figures with a dataset coded to 2022 NAICS, use the Census Bureau's NAICS concordance tables to match codes.

Population: Census Bureau Vintage 2024 county estimates (co-est2024-alldata.csv), POPESTIMATE2024; growth is POPESTIMATE2024 divided by ESTIMATESBASE2020, minus one. U.S. population is the sum of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Method: we filtered CBP to South Carolina (state FIPS 45), summed the four codes per county, joined population by county FIPS and computed shops per 10,000 residents for all 46 counties. U.S. rates sum the same codes across every county record. Size shares sum the published size class columns; cells marked N are excluded.

Limits: CBP excludes self-employed mechanics and mobile repair businesses with no employees, and dealership service departments are counted with the dealership, since each location is classified by its main activity. Each code is suppressed separately below three establishments, so small-county totals are undercounts. Employment and payroll carry disclosure noise. Vintage 2025 population estimates are now available; we used Vintage 2024 to stay closer to the 2023 business data.