Self storage statistics (2026)

The U.S. has 57,981 self storage facilities (Almanac 2025, Radius+ data), and 11.1% of households use storage (SSA 2023 study). Public Storage's FY2025 10-K estimates it owns about 9% of U.S. square footage and the top four owners about 22%, leaving about 78% to regional and local operators. Its Q2 2026 same-store occupancy was 92.5%.

Updated Oct 2026. Every number below links to its source and shows the period it covers.

Rows marked "as reported by" are secondary: the outlet quotes the data publisher. Rows marked "forecast" or "projection" are not measured results. For state rules that affect operations, see self storage late fee laws by state and our self storage lien law data table.

Market size

One projection and two transaction-market figures. The market size is a projection in its source, not a measured total.

Supply

Facility counts and square footage. The Almanac counts facilities with Radius+ data. Public company rows cover only their own portfolios.

Demand and usage

How many households rent storage, how long tenants stay, and how rents for new and existing tenants compare.

Occupancy and performance

Company figures are same-store results for the stated quarter or year. Forecasts are marked.

Rents

Rent figures use different definitions by publisher. Read the label in each row and do not compare them directly (see How to read these numbers).

Operators and ownership

Portfolio sizes of the largest public operators and Public Storage's estimate of ownership by square footage.

Development pipeline

New supply: completions, forecasts and construction in progress. Forecast rows are marked.

Labor and establishments

U.S. Census Bureau County Business Patterns for NAICS 531130, Lessors of Miniwarehouses and Self-Storage Units.

What these numbers mean for an independent owner

These points restate the data above. They are not forecasts.

• Regional and local operators own most of the square footage: about 78% by Public Storage's own estimate in its FY2025 10-K. The company says it owns about 9% and the four largest owners about 22%.
• The three REITs reported same-store occupancy of 94.2% (Extra Space Storage), 92.5% (Public Storage) and 91.0% (CubeSmart) for Q2 2026. These are REIT portfolios. No public source reports occupancy for independents alone.
• Most establishments are small. In the Census data for NAICS 531130 (2023), 16,965 of 18,564 establishments with paid employees had fewer than 5 employees and 1,226 had 5 to 9.
• Stitch calculation from Census CBP 2023: 16,965 + 1,226 = 18,191 establishments with fewer than 10 employees; 18,191 / 18,564 = 98.0%. Fewer than 5 employees alone: 16,965 / 18,564 = 91.4%. This is our own calculation from Census data, not a figure the Census Bureau publishes.
• Rent is under pressure on the advertised side: Yardi Matrix, as reported by CRE Daily, shows advertised rents down 1.6% year over year in July 2026, and new move-in rents about 40% below move-out rents in Q2 2026. To see how ECRI fits in, read how to raise rent on existing storage tenants. Rentable square footage is usually quoted as NRSF.

If you compare your own results to these figures, a software comparison with published prices shows what tracking them costs.

Where no public data exists

We looked for these and found no public primary source. We left them out instead of estimating.

• Share of facilities owned by independents versus REITs. There is no public facility count. The only figure is Public Storage's belief about square footage (about 9% itself, about 22% the top four, about 78% others), which is not a facility count.
• How often or how much existing tenant rents are raised (ECRI). No REIT or association publishes it. The only context is the move-in versus move-out rent gap from Yardi Matrix above.
• Tenant delinquency and lien auction counts. No national tenant delinquency statistic was found. The 0.05 percent figure above is the delinquency rate on securitized loans (July 2026, Marcus & Millichap), which measures lender credit, not tenant behavior.
• Street rate by unit size (for example 10x10) and climate-controlled versus non-climate. Yardi Matrix publishes these, but the pages were blocked to our research, so only the all-unit figures reported by Scotsman Guide and CRE Daily are included.
• Average facility size, occupancy of independents only, and industry-wide length of stay. The only length-of-stay figure is Extra Space Storage's own (about 17.0 months for departed same-store tenants).

How to read these numbers

• Facilities versus establishments. The Almanac's 57,981 facilities (Radius+) and the Census Bureau's 18,564 establishments with paid employees in NAICS 531130 measure different things. Census leaves out establishments without paid employees. They are not competing totals.
• Rent per square foot. Marcus & Millichap's $1.18 is a monthly asking rent. Yardi Matrix's $16.47 is an annual-style advertised rate, about $1.37 a month. Public Storage ($21.89, Q2 2026), CubeSmart ($22.34, Q2 2026) and Extra Space Storage ($19.91, full year 2025, net of discounts and bad debt) each report realized rent by their own definition. Do not average them or compare them directly.
• Occupancy versus vacancy. Extra Space Storage describes typical industry occupancy as around 90%. Marcus & Millichap forecasts national vacancy of 10 percent at year-end 2026. They are consistent, but they are different measures.
• CubeSmart revenue. We took CubeSmart's Q2 2026 same-store revenue change (+0.8%) from the company's earnings release filed with the SEC. A trade press roundup worded it differently, and we did not use that wording.
• Square footage growth. The Almanac's rentable square footage rose by about 550 million sq ft between its 2024 and 2025 editions. That is about ten times the new space Marcus & Millichap expects to be completed in all of 2026 (about 53 million sq ft), so read the year-over-year change as a change in what the count covers, not as new construction.
• Market size. The Almanac's $68.75 billion is a projection in the source, not a measured figure. Treat it as an estimate.
• Snapshots. The Yardi Matrix figures for February 2026 and July 2026 are monthly snapshots and will change. Public Storage's third quarter 2026 results, and the Extra Space Storage and CubeSmart third quarter releases, were not yet out on 2026-10-26, so Q2 2026 is the newest REIT data here.

Download the data

All 58 rows are in one file: self-storage-statistics-2026.csv. Columns are category, statistic, value, period, publisher, source_url, source_published and confidence. It is free to use. If you publish it or quote it, link back to this page: https://stitchstorage.com/guides/self-storage-statistics.