Where to Buy a Business in Wyoming
The Opportunity
Buyable Businesses
2,640
0.2% of the U.S. total
Per 100k Residents
449.3
#49 of 51 states by buyable count
SBA Acquisition Loans
80
$97.1M since FY2020, 12 of them in FY2025
Median SBA Loan
$722k
FY2020 through FY2025
Wyoming holds 2,640 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 0.2% of the country's buyable market and ranks Wyoming #49 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 Wyoming
Nobody searches Wyoming. 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, Natrona deepest among them.
| Natrona | 344 | 13% |
| Laramie | 326 | 12.3% |
| Campbell | 159 | 6% |
| Teton | 156 | 5.9% |
| Sweetwater | 124 | 4.7% |
| Sheridan | 124 | 4.7% |
| Fremont | 116 | 4.4% |
| Albany | 112 | 4.2% |
| Park | 110 | 4.2% |
| Lincoln | 56 | 2.1% |
What Trades Run Deepest in Wyoming
- Full-Service Restaurants389 buyable
- Limited-Service Restaurants346 buyable
- Gasoline Stations with Convenience Stores203 buyable
- Offices of Dentists149 buyable
- Child Care Services137 buyable
- Plumbing, Heating, and Air-Conditioning Contractors132 buyable
Each trade's pricing, licensing, and diligence live in its Industry Buy Guide. The financing side is in Wyoming'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 Wyoming
A vendor that discontinues its business or sells its stock of goods files a final return and pays within thirty days. The successor in business withholds from the purchase price an amount equal to any tax, penalty or interest due until the former owner produces the department's receipt showing that everything due has been paid or a certificate that no taxes are due. A successor that does not withhold is liable for the amount. Wyoming publishes this under W.S. 39-15-107(b)(vi), and what releases the buyer is the Department of Revenue's receipt showing all amounts due are paid, or a certificate that no taxes are due.
Read at source on wyoleg.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 Wyoming rather than as the answer. What every state requires is one table.
Next Door to Wyoming
Nobody buys a state. These are the states Wyoming touches, with the buyable businesses each holds in the same 36 trades.
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.