How many Australian car washs are in this dataset?

1,573, drawn from 565,935 scanned records and measured on 2026-09-22. That is a census of the car washs in this directory rather than of every car wash in Australia, and it skews toward businesses with enough of a public footprint to be found at all.

How many Australian car washs publish an ABN you can check?

5.7% — 90 of 1,573. The national rate across all trades is 19.5%, so car washs sit 71% below it. An ABN is free and public, so a missing one is usually a business that never put it on their website rather than a business without one.

How many car washs list a phone number that doesn't match their website?

7.7% of the 598 we compared, or about 46 businesses. This counts only cases where a listed number directly contradicts the number on the business's own site — not businesses with no phone number and not ones the comparison has not run for. It is often a stale listing, and sometimes a lead-reselling service sitting between you and the person who does the work.

How many Google reviews does the median Australian car wash have?

129, against a national median of 40 across all trades. Half have fewer. Review counts track how often people hire a trade rather than how well it performs, so comparing a car wash against a trade people call more often tells you very little.

Which state has the best-documented car washs?

Queensland leads on published ABNs at 7.6%, against 2.3% in South Australia. Only states with at least 40 businesses are compared, because percentages taken over a handful of businesses move too far on a single record to mean anything.

Research

Australian car washs, by the numbers

We checked what 1,573 Australian car washs publish about themselves, and how much of it holds up against an independent source.

Measured 2026-09-22 · free to reuse with attribution

5.7%

publish a checkable ABN

of all 1,573. 71% below the national rate of 19.5%.

37%

phone number confirmed against their own site

of 598 compared. 38% below the national rate of 59.8%.

7.7%

phone number contradicting their own site

of 598 compared. 13% above the national rate of 6.8%.

83.7%

have a website that loads

of 700 fetched. In line with the 82.6% national rate.

129

Google reviews for the median business

The national median is 40. Review counts track how often people hire a trade, not how well they do it — a trade you call once a decade will always sit lower.

What stands out

Car Washes publish a checkable ABN at 5.7%, 71% below the 19.5% national rate — the easiest identity check a customer can run is unavailable for more of this trade than for most.

46 car washs — 7.7% of the 598 we compared — list a phone number that contradicts the one on their own website, 13% above the national 6.8%. That is worth knowing before you call: it is the signature of both a stale listing and of a lead-reselling middleman.

The median has 129 Google reviews against 40 nationally. That gap says more about how often households need car washs than about the standard of the work, which is why the ranking on this site weights review volume on a log scale rather than treating a 5.0 from four reviews as equal to a 4.6 from three hundred.

Car Washes by state

States with at least 40 car washs in the directory. Smaller groups are held back rather than published as percentages that move too far on a single record.

Verification coverage for Australian car washs, by state
State	Businesses	ABN	Phones checked	Phone confirmed	Phone mismatch	Sites checked	Site loads	Median reviews
New South Wales	481	7.5%	181	29.3%	9.9%	204	86.3%	124
Victoria	443	3.6%	142	39.4%	7%	178	79.2%	125
Queensland	288	7.6%	113	45.1%	3.5%	130	83.1%	154
Western Australia	158	7%	79	31.6%	11.4%	85	91.8%	132
South Australia	133	2.3%	60	45%	5%	73	83.6%	84

Method, and what it can't tell you

1,573 Australian car washs. Every one of them gets the same four checks: an ABN lookup against the national register, a comparison of the listed phone number against the number on the business's own website, an HTTP request to that website, and a match against open mapping data maintained separately from Google.

Not all four have run everywhere yet, so the figures above are shares of what has been checked: 598 phone comparisons, 700 website fetches and 1,215 cross-source matches out of 1,573 businesses. A check that has not run counts in neither half of a percentage.

This is a census of a directory, not of the trade. It covers businesses with enough of a public footprint to be found at all, which if anything biases these figures upward — a business too small to appear here is less likely to publish an ABN, not more.

ABN registration is the one figure taken over every business in the group rather than over a checked subset, because an absent ABN is not a failed lookup — read it as a floor. Review counts and averages are held; individual reviews are not, so nothing here can tell you whether a business's reviews arrived steadily or all at once.

Full method and national figures: the state of Australian trade business data.

Common questions

How many Australian car washs are in this dataset?: 1,573, drawn from 565,935 scanned records and measured on 2026-09-22. That is a census of the car washs in this directory rather than of every car wash in Australia, and it skews toward businesses with enough of a public footprint to be found at all.
How many Australian car washs publish an ABN you can check?: 5.7% — 90 of 1,573. The national rate across all trades is 19.5%, so car washs sit 71% below it. An ABN is free and public, so a missing one is usually a business that never put it on their website rather than a business without one.
How many car washs list a phone number that doesn't match their website?: 7.7% of the 598 we compared, or about 46 businesses. This counts only cases where a listed number directly contradicts the number on the business's own site — not businesses with no phone number and not ones the comparison has not run for. It is often a stale listing, and sometimes a lead-reselling service sitting between you and the person who does the work.
How many Google reviews does the median Australian car wash have?: 129, against a national median of 40 across all trades. Half have fewer. Review counts track how often people hire a trade rather than how well it performs, so comparing a car wash against a trade people call more often tells you very little.
Which state has the best-documented car washs?: Queensland leads on published ABNs at 7.6%, against 2.3% in South Australia. Only states with at least 40 businesses are compared, because percentages taken over a handful of businesses move too far on a single record to mean anything.

Using these numbers

Free to quote, chart or republish under CC BY 4.0, which asks only for attribution and a link. The full aggregate dataset is available as a free download. If you need a cut that isn't published, ask.

WhoToHire, “Australian car wash data 2026”, 2026-09-22. https://whotohire.com.au/research/trades/car-washes

support@whotohire.com.au

Other trades: Builders · Roofers · Tilers · Painters · Fencing Contractors · Garage Door Specialists · Electricians · Plumbers · Heating & Cooling · Solar Installers · Locksmiths · Gardeners & Landscapers · Arborists · Pest Controllers · Pool Services · Cleaners · Removalists · Mechanics · Car Detailers · Photographers · Pet Groomers · Driving Schools