Where to Buy a Business in Tennessee
The Opportunity
Buyable Businesses
21,354
2.1% of the U.S. total
Per 100k Residents
295.4
#16 of 51 states by buyable count
SBA Acquisition Loans
430
$539M since FY2020, 106 of them in FY2025
Median SBA Deal
$798k
FY2020 through FY2025
Tennessee holds 21,354 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 2.1% 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 | 2,843 | 13.3% |
| Shelby | 2,756 | 12.9% |
| Knox | 1,808 | 8.5% |
| Hamilton | 1,423 | 6.7% |
| Rutherford | 970 | 4.5% |
| Williamson | 950 | 4.4% |
| Montgomery | 567 | 2.7% |
| Sumner | 542 | 2.5% |
| Sullivan | 488 | 2.3% |
| Washington | 470 | 2.2% |
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 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. Every state runs 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.
Next Door to Tennessee
Nobody buys a state. These are the states Tennessee touches, with the buyable businesses each holds in the same 29 trades.
- Alabama14,697 buyable
- Arkansas9,455 buyable
- Georgia32,450 buyable
- Kentucky13,452 buyable
- Missouri19,806 buyable
- Mississippi8,710 buyable
- North Carolina35,566 buyable
- Virginia27,654 buyable
Method & Source
Buyable counts are establishments with 5 to 99 employees in the 29 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.