Car Wash Feasibility Study in Louisiana

Louisiana's car wash book at a glance

Louisiana appears in SBA's FY2017 to FY2026 files with 30 car wash loans totalling $31.9 million. On the national state table that is 32 of 53, a middling place, and washes stand 14 of 39 on the state's own class table. What lifts the picture is the location quotient of 1.16x: washes make up a slightly bigger slice of Louisiana's SBA lending than of lending across the country. The typical loan is $823,500, or 0.89x the typical car wash loan nationally, so Louisiana operators borrow a little less than operators in other states while leaning on the programs a little more.

Program split, loan range and branding

Half of the state's washes borrowed between $399,750 and $1.3 million. Of the 30 loans, 23 came through SBA 7(a) and 7 through SBA 504, a split that points to a mix of acquisitions and working capital on one side and owner-occupied real estate and equipment on the other. Franchise share is 3.3%, so the great majority of Louisiana washes are independent. That matters to a lender, because an independent operator has no franchisor to supply site selection, volume benchmarks or a system of fees, and the feasibility work has to supply what a brand would otherwise provide.

Parishes and the shape of the years

The county table, which in Louisiana means parishes, is led by Lafayette with 8 loans. Ascension and Saint Tammany follow with 3 each, and Acadia, Caddo, Jefferson, Lafourche, Saint Charles and Tangipahoa have 2 apiece, while Bossier shows a single loan. Activity is spread across the Acadiana region, the Baton Rouge fringe, the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain and the Shreveport area, rather than piled into one metro. Yearly approvals peaked at 6 in FY2020 and have run at 2 or 3 in the most recent years, FY2025 and FY2026 each recording 2. No lender is listed for Louisiana washes, so nothing is said about who funds them.

What the code lumps together, and what is not published

Car washes and truck washes, mobile washes included, share a single industry code, so some of the 30 loans may belong to a truck wash or a van-based service, not to a tunnel or in-bay automatic. Treat the count as the car wash family. As for results, the share of approvals that were cancelled and the share of funded loans charged off are both left unpublished because each cohort is too small; we print no number and we do not treat either as zero, and rates on other pages are floors that open loans can still push up.

What a Louisiana wash study has to settle

The decisive question in Louisiana is traffic and weather together. A study has to count vehicles passing the site, test whether the lot can queue cars without blocking the road, and then weigh how often rain suppresses visits in a humid, storm-prone climate. Equipment type, whether tunnel, in-bay or self-serve, drives both cost and throughput, so the study should compare at least the tunnel and in-bay cases. Cost has to be read against a ticket that centres near $823,500 and should not drift far past $1.3 million without a reason. Membership revenue is the lever that can steady a weather-hit business, and the study must treat its churn candidly. Water, sewer and discharge permitting belong in the schedule, and an appraiser will value the site on the income the wash can sustain.