Where to Buy a Business in Massachusetts
The Opportunity
Buyable Businesses
27,394
2.3% of the U.S. total
Per 100k Residents
383.9
#14 of 51 states by buyable count
SBA Acquisition Loans
708
$588M since FY2020, 151 of them in FY2025
Median SBA Loan
$431k
FY2020 through FY2025
Massachusetts holds 27,394 businesses a searcher could realistically buy across the trades this site covers: establishments with 5 to 99 employees, big enough to have something to sell, small enough to finance. That is 2.3% of the country's buyable market and ranks Massachusetts #14 among the states. The number that decides a search, though, is not the state total but where inside the state those businesses sit.
The Deepest Counties in Massachusetts
Nobody searches Massachusetts. They search a metro they can drive across to meet an owner. These are the counties with the most buyable targets in the covered trades, Middlesex deepest among them.
| Middlesex | 6,366 | 23.2% |
| Norfolk | 3,209 | 11.7% |
| Essex | 3,050 | 11.1% |
| Worcester | 2,978 | 10.9% |
| Suffolk | 2,897 | 10.6% |
| Plymouth | 2,178 | 8% |
| Bristol | 2,071 | 7.6% |
| Hampden | 1,453 | 5.3% |
| Barnstable | 1,236 | 4.5% |
| Berkshire | 545 | 2% |
What Trades Run Deepest in Massachusetts
- Full-Service Restaurants4,717 buyable
- Limited-Service Restaurants3,530 buyable
- Offices of Dentists2,130 buyable
- Snack and Nonalcoholic Beverage Bars1,961 buyable
- Child Care Services1,477 buyable
- Plumbing, Heating, and Air-Conditioning Contractors1,130 buyable
Each trade's pricing, licensing, and diligence live in its Industry Buy Guide. The financing side is in Massachusetts's SBA acquisition-lending profile. The same counts industry by industry across every state are in Where the Businesses Are, and several of these trades restrict who can own at all: the Ownership & License Rules table names which.
Before You Close in Massachusetts
A corporation selling substantially all of its Massachusetts assets notifies the Commissioner in writing at least five days before the sale and pays what it owes to that date. If it does not, the Commonwealth takes a lien on the assets effective immediately before the transfer. Massachusetts publishes this under M.G.L. chapter 62C section 51, and what releases the buyer is the Waiver of the lien, or a certificate of good standing under section 52.
Read at source on malegislature.gov. Most states run a version of this rule and the wording decides what a closing has to do, so treat it as the question to put to a lawyer in Massachusetts rather than as the answer. What every state requires is one table.
Next Door to Massachusetts
Nobody buys a state. These are the states Massachusetts touches, with the buyable businesses each holds in the same 36 trades.
- Connecticut13,789 buyable
- New Hampshire6,072 buyable
- New York64,697 buyable
- Rhode Island4,330 buyable
- Vermont2,695 buyable
Method & Source
Buyable counts are establishments with 5 to 99 employees in the 36 covered trades, summed from the Census County Business Patterns (2023). A county total is a lower bound: Census suppresses cells thin enough to identify a single business, and a trade we have not written a guide for is not counted. SBA figures are change-of-ownership 7(a) approvals (FY2020 through FY2025), approvals rather than closings.