NUMBERS, STATS, AND METRICS TO DRIVE YOUR BUSINESS

How Fitness Operators Turn Growth Into Profit

Nearly two-thirds of reporting operators saw increased profitability last year, according to HFA's 2026 Fitness Industry Benchmarking Report.

The fitness industry didn’t just get bigger in 2025; it got more profitable.

That is the central finding of the HFA 2026 Fitness Industry Benchmarking Report. Drawing on confidential financial and operating data from 244 operators representing nearly 27,000 facilities with more than 85 million members across 40 countries, the report shows median revenue rose 10.7% year over year, while median EBITDA margins reached 22.1%.

More telling is what happened beneath the headline figure. Among operators that reported results for both 2024 and 2025, median EBITDA margins expanded by about 1.2 percentage points, and 63% increased their EBITDA dollars.

Those gains came in a demanding environment. Operators faced continued pressure from staffing, financing, and other costs throughout the year. Yet the improvement wasn’t limited to a handful of standouts—gains showed up across much of the respondent base.

“What stands out is not simply that fitness businesses continued to grow last year, but that more of that growth translated into earnings,” says Greta Wagner, HFA’s interim president and CEO. “Fitness operators are navigating many of the same cost and affordability pressures facing other consumer businesses, yet they continue to demonstrate healthy demand and stronger financial performance.”

That combination, Wagner explains, “points to an industry whose growth is increasingly supported by stronger financial fundamentals.”

What the Top Performers Do Differently

The report also looks at what distinguishes the industry’s most profitable businesses from the competition. A key differentiator is labor productivity. High-profit operators generated approximately 21% more revenue per full-time employee than lower-profit operators. Payroll consumed 32.4% of revenue at high-profit operators, compared with 42.5% at lower-profit businesses. Across all respondents, payroll accounted for 36.4% of revenue.

Price point matters, too. Gyms charging $50 or less in monthly dues posted 16.2% median revenue growth in 2025, well ahead of the 10.7% overall median, while spending just 29.3% of revenue on payroll.

Those figures are a small slice of the report, which benchmarks revenue and growth; profitability and financial health; membership performance; staffing and labor costs; productivity and efficiency; reinvestment; facilities and services; and operator expectations.

Results are presented with further breakdowns by company size, club type, number of locations, profitability, reinvestment level, and membership price point. That lets operators measure their own numbers against those of businesses that resemble their own. As the report notes, spotting significant differences between a company’s performance and the composites can be the first step toward improving it.

The report also tracks how the service model is widening, from HYROX and strength training to recovery and health-oriented services, and captures what operators expect for revenue, membership, technology investment, and staffing.

“The Fitness Industry Benchmarking Report is a unique resource built from anonymized financial and operating data submitted directly by fitness businesses,” says Anton Severin, HFA’s vice president of research.

Severin credits the companies that contributed data.

“Their participation makes these benchmarks possible while strengthening our collective understanding of the industry,” he says. “No other resource offers the same depth of industry-specific insight into the measures that determine business health.”

Get the Report

The 2026 Fitness Industry Benchmarking Report is available to HFA members and industry partner members as a PDF download through their HFA profile. Operators who contributed to the survey also have access to interactive online reporting tools in the HFA Research Portal, which allow more specific analysis than the main report could reasonably contain.

Access Report

See the FIBR Webinar On Demand

On October 29, HFA presented an exclusive webinar: 2026 Fitness Industry Benchmarking Report: How Does Your Business Measures Up? The webinar presents a deep discussion of the findings in the HFA 2026 Fitness Industry Benchmarking Report (FIBR).

Hosted by Anton Severin, HFA vice president of research, and featuring Greg Manns, CPA, senior vice president of Industry Insights, the webinar highlights the report's value for operators who want to assess business performance against relevant peers across different facility models and pricing segments.

The presentation details five key analytical areas: revenue growth, profitability, asset management, debt financing, and personnel productivity. Manns explains the DuPont profit model for evaluating return on assets and return on equity, and demonstrates how three hypothetical clubs—multipurpose, fitness-only, and boutique—could use the interactive report card to identify operational weaknesses.

Manns walks through key findings, emphasizing double-digit sales growth in fiscal year 2024, strong EBITDA figures exceeding 20% for most club types, and the importance of expense management among high-profit performers.

Key benchmarking metrics discussed include:

· net profit before taxes (median 13% for all firms);

· debt-to-equity ratios;

· current ratios;

· payroll as percentage of revenue (37.5% typical); and

· revenue per full-time-equivalent employee.

The next wave of data collection will open in February 2027, with participants receiving early access to results, confidential company performance reports, and interactive benchmarking tools.

If you would like to participate in the next iterations of this research, reach out to: Health & Fitness Association Anton Severin, Vice President of Research aseverin@healthandfitness.org

Health & Fitness Business is a publication of

Health & Fitness Business (HFB) is the leading health and fitness industry publication. Published monthly by the Health & Fitness Association (HFA) and distributed free to the industry, HFB offers analysis of the opportunities, challenges, issues, and news that impact the industry.

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