Industry multiples
Valuation multiples by industry, with the cohort shown
EV/EBITDA, EV/EBIT and EV/Sales for 94 US industries, from Aswath Damodaran's January 2026 tables of US public companies. Each industry shows EV/EBITDA on profitable firms beside EV/EBITDA on all firms, and the gap between the two. A private business trades below these figures, for size, owner dependence and customer concentration.
The lookup
Industries
94 of 94 industriesWhole market
Total Market
Pick an industry from the list. The figures below are the whole US market.
- Firms in the sampleCompanies in the industry grouping
- 5,994
- EV/EBITDA, profitable firmsAggregate enterprise value over aggregate EBITDA, firms with positive EBITDA only
- 19.7x
- EV/EBITDA, all firmsThe same ratio with the loss-making firms in the denominator
- 23.9x
- GapHow far the all-firm figure sits above the profitable-firm figure
- +21%
- EV/EBIT, profitable firmsEnterprise value over pre-tax operating income, firms with positive EBITDA only
- 29.1x
- EV/SalesEnterprise value over revenue, all firms
- 4.0x
- Operating marginPre-tax operating income over revenue, all firms
- 13%
Without financial firms, 4,822 firms: 16.9x on profitable firms, 19.9x on all firms.
Why two numbers
Why two numbers
These multiples are aggregates: the industry's total enterprise value divided by the industry's total EBITDA. A company with negative EBITDA adds to the numerator and subtracts from the denominator, so a loss-maker in the sample lifts the all-firm figure above what the profitable companies trade at.
Across the 90 industries where both figures exist, the median gap is 15 percent, 7 industries sit above 50 percent and 11 run the other way, so the gap is a figure to look up, not a rule of thumb.
The rule for an LOI range or a marketing valuation: a published multiple that does not say which companies are in the denominator is an upper bound, not a midpoint.
The arithmetic is worked through in The Brief, Dispatch 2, and the transaction-level sources to use instead of a public sector average are listed in the multiples guide.
What this does not tell you
What this does not tell you
- Public, not private.
- Every figure comes from listed US companies with audited accounts, liquid shares and analyst coverage. A private company in the same trade is priced below these, and the discount grows as the company gets smaller.
- Size.
- A grouping here puts the largest listed company in the sector in the same aggregate as the smallest, and the aggregate leans toward the largest. The multiple a lower-middle-market business clears is set by the buyers who compete for it, not by the sector's biggest members.
- No SDE.
- These are EBITDA and EBIT multiples on companies run by salaried management. An owner-operated business is valued on SDE, and an SDE multiple is a different number.
- No Polish data.
- The sample is US listings only. There is no Polish or European cohort in this table.
Source: Aswath Damodaran, NYU Stern, January 2026 data, US companies. Reproduced with credit. Damodaran's EV/EBITDA table. Retrieved 2026-10-30.
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