Fitness Industry Growth is Translating into Stronger Profits
Posted: October 7, 2026 in HFA
The Health and Fitness Association
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The fitness industry’s continued growth is increasingly translating into stronger bottom-line performance, according to new global benchmarking data from the Health & Fitness Association (HFA).
Fitness businesses delivered another year of strong financial results in 2025, with median revenue increasing 10.7% year over year and median EBITDA margins reaching 22.1%. Among operators providing financial results for both 2024 and 2025, median EBITDA margins expanded by approximately 1.2 percentage points. Even more significantly, 63% increased EBITDA dollars, demonstrating that operators are increasingly turning industry growth into stronger earnings.
Those results are particularly notable given the operating environment. Fitness businesses continued to face pressure from labor, occupancy, financing and other costs throughout 2025. Despite those challenges, profitability improvements were not confined to a small group of companies. Margin gains were evident 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,” said Greta Wagner, interim president and CEO of HFA. “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 points to an industry whose growth is increasingly supported by stronger financial fundamentals.”
The new data also provide insight into what separates the industry’s strongest performers. High-profit operators generated approximately 21% more revenue per full-time equivalent employee than lower-profit operators. Payroll costs represented 32.4% of revenue among high-profit operators, compared with 42.5% among lower-profit businesses, highlighting the role productivity and operating efficiency can play in financial performance.
The findings come from HFA’s newly released 2026 Fitness Industry Benchmarking Report, which draws on confidential financial and operating data submitted by 244 operators representing nearly 27,000 fitness facilities across 40 countries.
“The Fitness Industry Benchmarking Report is a unique resource built from anonymized financial and operating data submitted directly by fitness businesses,” said Anton Severin, vice president of research at HFA. “We are deeply grateful to every company that contributed. Their participation makes these benchmarks possible while strengthening our collective understanding of the industry. No other resource offers the same depth of industry-specific insight into the measures that determine business health.”
The report provides benchmarks across 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 for all respondents worldwide and separately for U.S. respondents, with additional comparisons by company size, club type, number of locations, profitability, reinvestment level, and membership price point.
On October 29, HFA will host a webinar with Greg Manns, CPA, of Industry Insights, to walk through the results, explain how to interpret the benchmarks, and discuss practical ways operators can use the data. The webinar is open to all survey contributors, as well as HFA members and industry partner members.
HFA members and industry partner members can access the report through their HFA profile. Membership includes access to a wide range of research, advocacy, and business resources.
While the main report provides an abridged view of the HFA Fitness Industry Benchmarking Survey results, operators who contributed to the research also have access to additional online reporting tools housed in the HFA Research Portal, enabling more specific analysis of the data.
