Where to Buy a Business in Tennessee
The Opportunity
Buyable Businesses
23,855
2% of the U.S. total
Per 100k Residents
330
#16 of 51 states by buyable count
SBA Acquisition Loans
430
$539M since FY2020, 106 of them in FY2025
Median SBA Loan
$798k
FY2020 through FY2025
Tennessee holds 23,855 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% of the country's buyable market and ranks Tennessee #16 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 Tennessee
Nobody searches Tennessee. 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, Davidson deepest among them.
| Davidson | 3,097 | 13% |
| Shelby | 3,053 | 12.8% |
| Knox | 2,043 | 8.6% |
| Hamilton | 1,579 | 6.6% |
| Williamson | 1,093 | 4.6% |
| Rutherford | 1,062 | 4.5% |
| Montgomery | 611 | 2.6% |
| Sumner | 602 | 2.5% |
| Sullivan | 535 | 2.2% |
| Washington | 506 | 2.1% |
What Trades Run Deepest in Tennessee
- Limited-Service Restaurants4,718 buyable
- Full-Service Restaurants3,735 buyable
- Gasoline Stations with Convenience Stores1,589 buyable
- Offices of Dentists1,508 buyable
- Snack and Nonalcoholic Beverage Bars956 buyable
- Plumbing, Heating, and Air-Conditioning Contractors917 buyable
Each trade's pricing, licensing, and diligence live in its Industry Buy Guide. The financing side is in Tennessee'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 Tennessee
The purchaser withholds enough of the purchase price to cover the seller's unpaid sales tax unless the seller hands over a receipt showing it paid or a certificate saying none is due, and a purchaser who does not is liable for it. Tennessee publishes this under Tennessee Department of Revenue, how tax debt follows a business when purchased, and what releases the buyer is the department's receipt or certificate, or a seller's affidavit under penalty of perjury with the amount withheld against it.
Read at source on revenue.support.tn.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 Tennessee rather than as the answer. What every state requires is one table.
Next Door to Tennessee
Nobody buys a state. These are the states Tennessee touches, with the buyable businesses each holds in the same 36 trades.
- Alabama16,540 buyable
- Arkansas10,505 buyable
- Georgia36,421 buyable
- Kentucky14,943 buyable
- Missouri22,224 buyable
- Mississippi9,700 buyable
- North Carolina39,632 buyable
- Virginia31,567 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.