Selling a Trades Business in Nevada: A Working Broker's Guide

Selling a trades business in Nevada comes down to three things: clean books, profit that survives without you, and reaching the handful of buyers who actually close. Most owner-operated shops under $5M sell on a multiple of SDE or EBITDA, and Nevada has no state income tax, which changes your after-tax number for the better. Here is how the whole process works, start to finish.

What is my Nevada trades business actually worth?

For most shops under $5M in revenue, value is a multiple of earnings. Smaller owner-operated businesses are usually priced on Seller's Discretionary Earnings (SDE), which is your profit plus your owner salary, benefits, and one-time or personal expenses added back. Larger businesses that run with a management layer get priced on EBITDA instead.

Here are typical ranges I see cited across the trades. Treat these as starting points, not promises. Where your business lands inside the range depends almost entirely on how dependent the business is on you personally.

So an HVAC business with $600,000 of SDE might start a conversation somewhere in the $1.2M to $2M range before you factor in recurring maintenance contracts, your team, and your customer mix. The spread between the low end and the high end is enormous, and closing that gap is most of what I do.

What do buyers in Nevada actually look at?

Buyers are not buying your truck fleet or your logo. They are buying future cash flow and how safely they can keep it after you leave. The questions I hear from every serious buyer:

• Does it run without the owner? If you are the top salesperson, the lead tech, and the only one who talks to the big accounts, the business is worth less because the buyer is taking on more risk.
• How much revenue is recurring? Maintenance agreements and service contracts are worth far more than one-off project work, because they are predictable.
• Customer concentration. If one or two customers are a big share of revenue, that is a discount.
• Your techs and your bench. In this labor market, a trained, licensed crew that will stay is a real asset.
• Clean, normalized books. Three years of tax returns that tie to your P&L, with add-backs you can actually prove.

If you fix nothing else before you sell, work on owner independence. It moves your multiple more than anything else on this list.

Do you pay tax when you sell a business in Nevada?

Nevada has no state income tax and no separate state capital gains tax. That means the state does not take a second bite out of your sale the way a seller in California or Oregon would feel it.

You will still owe federal tax on the gain, and how the deal is structured, asset sale versus stock sale, and how the price is allocated across goodwill, equipment, and other assets, changes your federal bill a lot. That allocation is negotiated, and it is worth real money, so it belongs in front of a CPA before you sign anything. I help owners think through structure, but the final tax call is your accountant's.

Can you transfer a Nevada contractor license when you sell?

A Nevada contractor's license is issued by the Nevada State Contractors Board (NSCB) and is tied to the licensed entity and its qualified individual, not simply handed over with the keys. When ownership changes, the Board has specific rules about notifying them and requalifying.

This matters for your timeline. If the buyer needs the license to keep operating, the licensing step can gate the close, so we plan for it early rather than discovering it two weeks before signing. In practice it shapes whether a deal is structured as an asset sale or an entity sale, and who holds the qualifying license on day one.

How do buyers pay for a Nevada business?

Most sub-$5M deals are financed with an SBA 7(a) acquisition loan, often combined with a seller note. The SBA updated its rules effective June 1, 2025, and the details affect how your deal gets structured:

• The buyer generally needs at least a 10% equity injection.
• A seller note can count toward that injection only if it is on full standby for the life of the loan and is no more than half of the required injection.
• Max 7(a) loan is $5M, with terms up to 10 years for a business (longer with owner-occupied real estate).

What this means for you as a seller: expect most buyers to ask you to carry some seller financing, and expect the SBA's rules to shape how that note is written. A business with clean books and provable cash flow sails through SBA underwriting. A messy one stalls.

How long does it take to sell?

For a well-prepared trades business, plan on roughly six to nine months from the day we list to the day you get paid, sometimes faster, sometimes longer. The rough shape:

• Weeks 1 to 4: valuation, normalizing your earnings, gathering documents, building the marketing package.
• Months 2 to 4: confidential marketing, buyer calls, offers.
• Months 4 to 6: letter of intent, due diligence, SBA underwriting.
• Close: legal, licensing, and funding come together.

The single biggest delay I see is books that are not ready. If you want to sell next year, start cleaning up your financials now.

Reno vs Las Vegas: where do trades businesses sell best?

Both markets are active, but they draw different buyers. Las Vegas has the deeper pool of individual buyers, searchers, and private-equity-backed platforms rolling up home services, especially HVAC and plumbing. Reno and the northern Nevada corridor have benefited from manufacturing and logistics growth, which supports commercial and industrial trades work.

I have done my deal work in both markets. If you own a business in either metro, the buyer demand is there. What determines your outcome is not the city, it is whether your business is ready to hand off.

How to get ready

If you take one thing from this guide: the work that raises your price happens before you list, not during the sale. Clean up your books, document your processes, reduce how much the business leans on you, and lock in your key people. Then get a real valuation so you are negotiating from facts.

That is exactly the conversation I have with owners every week. It is confidential, there is no obligation to sell, and you walk away knowing what your business is actually worth.