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Gas Station & C-Store · Asset Class

Gas Station & C-Store Feasibility & Market Studies

Independent, lender-grade analysis for gas stations and convenience stores across SBA 7(a) and 504, USDA Business & Industry, conventional bank, and bridge capital. This page is our standing read on why fuel-and-convenience is a going-concern operating business rather than a real-estate play, how fuel-volume, margin, and environmental forecasts fail review, and the difference between the market study, the feasibility study, and the going-concern appraisal a lender requires.

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$341B
2025 in-store sales, a 23rd straight annual record2
38.8%
Fuel's share of gross profit, though it is 65% of sales2
~13¢
Net fuel margin per gallon after costs, from a ~36¢ gross3
8.9M
Barrels/day of U.S. gasoline demand, 4% below 20196
The Fuel-and-Convenience Thesis

This is a business you underwrite, not a building.

Fuel-and-convenience is the asset class where the real estate is the smaller part of the story. A gas station with a convenience store is a large, fragmented, going-concern operating business, and that single fact drives everything a lender must underwrite: the deliverable set is a feasibility study plus a special-purpose going-concern appraisal, not an income-approach opinion on bricks. There were 151,975 U.S. convenience stores as of December 31, 2025, of which 122,620 sell fuel, the highest fuel-selling count in eight years, and the base is strikingly small-operator: 63 percent of stores are owned by operators with ten or fewer sites, and 54.6 percent of fuel-selling stores are single-store operators.14 We prepare the market study, the feasibility study, and the going-concern appraisal input a fuel-and-convenience file needs, aligned to the standard that will judge it.

The economics are counterintuitive, and it is where most pro formas go wrong: profit sits inside the store, not at the pump. Fuel was 65.0 percent of sales dollars in 2025 but only 38.8 percent of gross-profit dollars, while foodservice alone drove 38.9 percent of in-store gross profit; net fuel margin, after distribution, card fees, and operating costs, falls to roughly 13 cents per gallon from a 36-cent gross, and operator-level analysis puts net profit at just 3 to 7 cents per gallon.2312 Demand is durable but structurally flat-to-declining, and the near-term threat is fuel economy, not electric vehicles: U.S. gasoline consumption was 8.9 million barrels per day in 2025, down 1 percent, with the EIA attributing forecast declines principally to fleet fuel-economy gains.6 And environmental liability from underground storage tanks is the single most common deal-killer, a risk the feasibility author flags but does not itself clear.24

What follows is organized as a working desk: a national and regional supply and demand monitor, the feasibility and operating forensics that sink fuel-and-convenience studies, the capital-source routing that decides which deliverable a project needs, and the study-type distinctions competitors state loosely. Every figure is dated and attributed in the sources below.

The Supply & Demand Monitor

Where the fuel-and-convenience market stands, region by region.

A store-base, fuel-demand, and pricing read for the major US fuel-and-convenience markets, compiled from named primary sources. Metro-level operating data is proprietary and thin, so the matrix falls back to state and PADD-region data and flags the thin spots. Data current through mid-2026; state gasoline figures are EIA's 2023 vintage, the latest complete table.

The national picture frames every market. The store universe is flat while the fuel-selling count rises: 151,975 stores as of December 31, 2025, down 280 in the second consecutive annual decline, but 122,620 of them sell fuel, up 768 to the highest count in eight years, so 80.7 percent of stores sell fuel and convenience stores move an estimated 80 percent of US fuel.15 One caution on counts: NACS tallies retail locations, whereas IBISWorld counts business entities within narrower NAICS codes, 58,582 gas-stations-with-c-stores and 52,116 convenience-store businesses in 2025, so the two are not like-for-like and should never be netted.13 Inside sales hit a record even as headline sales fell on cheaper fuel: in-store sales reached $341.2 billion in 2025, up 1.7 percent and the 23rd consecutive annual increase, while total industry sales of $817.5 billion fell because fuel sales dropped 5.4 percent to $476.3 billion as the average pump price slid from $3.30 to $3.11 even though gallons sold rose 0.5 percent.2 The sector is unusually fragmented and consolidating fast: only 22 chains exceed 400 locations, operators with 500-plus stores own 22.2 percent of the base, and 2025 brought Sunoco's $9.1 billion acquisition of Parkland and Couche-Tard's $1.6 billion GetGo deal, with strategic buyers roughly 89 to 93 percent of deal volume and baby-boomer succession a structural driver.141516 State-level gasoline consumption anchors each row of the matrix below, from Texas near 14.6 billion gallons and California near 13.2 billion down to Georgia near 5.1 billion, on the EIA's 2023 vintage.7

Opportunity read: Opportunity Watch Contraction. Bases differ by column and must not be cross-compared; a cap rate is a real-estate-only leased-fee basis, not a going-concern (whole-business) basis.
Region / State Store base (2025) Fuel-demand basis Pricing / cap-rate basis Opportunity read
Texas (PADD 3)16,504 stores, #1; +88 in 2025Largest state consumer, ~14.6B gal (2023)Gulf Coast lowest prices; premium NNN marketOpportunityWatch interstate overbuild
California (PADD 5)12,143 stores, #2~13.2B gal (2023); refinery closures tightening supplyHighest prices & margins; EIA sees PADD 5 rising in 2026WatchEntitlement/LCFS; thin site data, flag
Florida9,730 stores, #3~9.4B gal (2023)Premium corners $4–8M; ~8x EBITDA (business + RE)OpportunityIn-migration & tourism support volume
New York7,561 stores, #4; −143 (largest decline)~5.2B gal (2023)Northeast premium NNN marketContractionHigh operating cost; thin site data, flag
Georgia7,092 stores, #5~5.1B gal (2023)Southeast NNN demand strongOpportunitySun Belt growth corridor
Midwest (PADD 2)OH 5,833; MI 4,957; IL 4,708Second-lowest regional prices; stable demandBelow-average land cost; Casey's 40¢+ fuel marginsOpportunityFoodservice-led regional operators
Rocky Mtn / West ex-CA (PADD 4)Varies; lower densityFlat demand; constrained supply on population growthHigher transport-driven pricesWatchScarcity value on trucking corridors

Store counts are NACS/NIQ TDLinx (December 31, 2025); state gasoline consumption is EIA SEDS Table F10, 2023 vintage (latest complete state table), and cap-rate references apply to corporate-guaranteed NNN leased real estate, a real-estate-only basis not comparable to owner-operator going-concern value. Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City, and Miami are flagged as markets where public site-level fuel operating data is especially thin; commission primary traffic and competitor data there rather than relying on national averages. See sources 1, 7, 17, and 20.

Profit sits inside the store, not at the pump

No figure on this page is more misused than the pump. Fuel is the traffic driver and the headline, but the store is the profit engine. Foodservice was 28.5 percent of in-store sales in 2025 yet 38.9 percent of in-store gross-profit dollars, up from 11.9 percent of sales in 2005, with prepared food nearly three-quarters of the foodservice category; well-run merchandise operations run 30 to 35 percent gross margins and foodservice can exceed 50 percent, against low-single-digit net fuel margins.212 A pro forma that over-weights fuel gross profit and models best-in-class inside capture at a commodity fuel site with weak foodservice overstates both revenue and durability. The correct question is not gallons alone but how many of those fuel customers come inside and what they spend once there.

Fuel margin has three bases that must never be conflated

Margin is where studies quietly break. Gross retail fuel margin, the spread between street price and wholesale before store expenses, was cited by NACS at 35.7 cents per gallon for early 2025, with OPIS and Raymond James reporting a five-year average of 39.2 cents for gasoline and 53.3 cents for diesel.38 Net fuel margin, after distribution, card fees, and operating costs, falls to about 13 cents, with card fees alone near 8 cents per gallon, a record $21.3 billion industry-wide in 2025 and the second-highest operating cost after labor, and operator-level net profit lands at just 3 to 7 cents.31112 Murphy USA's chief executive has called fuel-margin volatility “the single greatest factor in the volatility of earnings of the business.”31 Margins are also regional: the West Coast consistently carries the highest prices and, with the Phillips 66 Los Angeles refinery closing at the end of 2025, the EIA expects PADD 5 margins to rise even as other regions fall, while the Gulf Coast holds the lowest prices. A feasibility study's margin assumptions must therefore be regionally calibrated, and card fees modeled as a percent of a volatile fuel price rather than as a fixed cost.6

Demand is durable but flat-to-declining, and EVs are not the near-term threat

The transition risk is real but slower than the headlines. U.S. gasoline consumption was 8.9 million barrels per day in 2025, down 1 percent year over year and 4 percent below 2019, and the EIA attributes forecast 2026 and 2027 declines principally to fleet fuel economy, not EV adoption, given the auto industry's five-to-seven-year design cycle; light-duty vehicles are roughly 91 percent of gasoline use.6 California modeling reinforces the point: zero-emission vehicles displaced only about 3.5 percent of gasoline demand in 2024, versus roughly 24 percent from fuel-economy gains, and are projected at 4.9 percent by 2026.9 Globally the IEA notes EV oil displacement grew 30 percent to over 1.3 million barrels per day in 2024, but with US electrification comparatively slow, about 1.6 million EV sales, up only around 10 percent against China's 40 percent.10 The lender takeaway is that gasoline demand is durable across a typical 10-to-25-year amortization but flat-to-declining, so any pro forma that assumes rising per-site gallons must be scrutinized.

A cap rate is not going-concern value

The pricing data most often misapplied to these assets is the net-lease cap rate. Single-tenant net-lease retail cap rates averaged roughly 6.96 to 6.97 percent in the first half of 2025, and for convenience and gas-station NNN specifically, credit-worthy deals traded in the low-to-mid 5 percent range, short-term-credit deals above 6 percent, and smaller-unit operators above 7 percent on guarantor risk, with a 10-to-15-basis-point compression following the July 2025 reinstatement of 100 percent bonus depreciation.171819 But those cap rates apply to corporate-guaranteed leased real estate, a real-estate-only basis. An owner-operator single site trades on a going-concern basis, a multiple of EBITDA: STAX cites roughly 2.5x to 4.0x for the business alone or about 8x for business plus premium real estate.20 The gap is not academic. Retail Petroleum Consultants illustrates that a fee-simple going-concern station with $100,000 of cash flow might carry a going-concern cap rate above 9 percent, roughly a $1.0 million value, while the same site on a 6.5 percent NNN sale-leaseback would show a leased-fee value near $1.385 million.21 Lenders must know which basis they are underwriting.

Common Review Failures

How fuel-and-convenience forecasts fail review.

Fuel volume, inside-sales capture, margin, and environmental exposure are the variables a credit committee scrutinizes most, and the places fuel-and-convenience studies most often break. Each failure below is tied to a real mechanism or number.

  1. Fuel-volume ramp detached from traffic quality

    Gallons are the primary value driver, and they correlate with, but are not determined by, raw traffic count. A documented Salton City site on a 4,300-AADT road sold the same volume as an interstate site at 60,000, on trucking-route logistics and a local moratorium. Applying a flat capture rate to a traffic count, without trip origin, competition, and physical throughput (queue length, hours, dispenser count), overstates the ramp.30

  2. Inside-sales and foodservice capture over-optimism

    About 57 percent of fuel customers come inside, and the average c-store transaction ran roughly $12.13 in 2025, but foodservice, which drives 38.9 percent of in-store gross profit, requires capital, labor, and operational competence. Modeling mature-store foodservice margins in Year 1 of a ramp, or best-in-class capture at a commodity fuel site, inflates both revenue and profit.231

  3. Capitalizing a temporary fuel-margin peak

    Because net fuel margin is thin and volatile, a pro forma over-weighted to fuel gross profit is fragile. Retail Petroleum Consultants warns explicitly that fuel margins at 10-year highs “will not last the duration of a typical holding period,” and can leave an NNN investor with a tenant unable to pay rent. Capitalizing a peak margin into perpetuity, rather than a through-cycle margin near the OPIS five-year average, overstates sustainable value.213

  4. Environmental / UST liability omitted from the budget

    Underground storage tanks are the dominant hidden risk. A Phase I ESA under ASTM E1527-21 runs $2,500 to $6,000, a Phase II can exceed $50,000, and historical remediation runs $50,000 to more than $500,000, with environmental stigma sometimes cutting value by more than the remediation cost. Budgets that omit a remediation contingency and Phase II timing fail, and confirmed contamination halts SBA approval and disbursement.2524

  5. Competition and cannibalization ignored

    New or expanding nearby stations can profoundly reduce forecast sales, including cannibalization of an operator's own adjacent sites. Institutional site selection uses AADT plus anonymized mobile-location data and gravity or simulation models, not the “if every station captures 3 percent of traffic then 33 can coexist” reasoning the industry rejects. A static competitive set that ignores announced or permitted new supply overstates capture.2230

  6. Breakeven gallonage and DSCR never computed

    A rigorous study computes how many gallons and inside-sales dollars are needed to cover fixed costs and debt service, and shows debt-service coverage by year built on regionally calibrated margins. Presenting ROI or IRR without a breakeven-gallonage floor and a stressed-volume case, or sizing to cost or appraised value rather than to a sustainable DSCR, is the failure lenders catch most often.31

  7. EV transition and demand decline left unstressed

    With gasoline demand flat-to-declining and fuel economy eroding per-vehicle consumption, a pro forma that assumes rising per-site gallons is optimistic by construction. And EV charging is not yet a bridge: a 2026 analysis of 4,000-plus DC fast-charging stations found a median of nine sessions per day, and McKinsey concluded profitability is challenging at roughly 15 percent utilization. Studies that assume growing gallons or profitable standalone charging overstate long-run cash flow.629

Capital-Source Routing

Which channel funds the project, and what it requires.

Fuel-and-convenience routes through distinct capital sources, and each requires a different deliverable and coverage standard. Because the station is owner-operated, SBA 7(a) and 504 are the core channels here, a sharp contrast with passive investment real estate. The study is built to the union of requirements across the channels actually in play.

The fuel-and-convenience lender matrix
Deliverable and coverage convention by capital source. Coverage figures are market conventions, not universal minimums.23
Capital sourceDeliverableCoverage convention
SBA 7(a) / 504 (owner-occupied)Feasibility study + special-purpose going-concern appraisal (CG appraiser)51% existing / 60% new; 15–20%+ equity; ~1.15x+ DSCR (504)
Conventional bankLender-ordered going-concern appraisal + Phase I ESA20–30%+ down; going-concern DSCR; environmental clearance
USDA B&I (rural)Owner-operated feasibility with positive DSCR80/70/60% guarantee by size; 10% (existing) / 20% (startup) equity; ≤$25M
Bridge / hard-moneyCollateral valuation + a documented refinance exit60–75% LTV; 9–14%+, 2–4 points; 6 months–3 years
USDA REAPRenewable-energy / efficiency project (guaranteed loan)80% guarantee; grant paused FY2026; not public retail EV charging

Sources: SBA SOP 50 10 8 (effective June 1, 2025); USDA B&I / OneRD (7 CFR Part 5001) and REAP term sheets; conventional and bridge lender norms. See sources 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, and 32.

One structural point governs the whole file: gas stations are named special-purpose properties under SBA SOP 50 10 8, effective June 1, 2025, defined as limited-market properties whose design restricts their utility to the built use. For a change of ownership over $250,000, or where buyer and seller are related, the going-concern appraisal must be performed by a Certified General Real Property Appraiser, independent of loan production, who has completed at least four equivalent going-concern appraisals in the prior 36 months, and it must allocate value across land, building, equipment, and intangible assets.23 Because 504 can finance only fixed assets, not goodwill or working capital, a transaction with a large goodwill component often routes to 7(a), which can finance the business plus the real estate in one loan; special-purpose properties also carry a higher equity injection, commonly 15 to 20 percent or more.2326 A related structuring discipline is collateral matching: fueling improvements have shorter economic lives than the building, so over-securing a 25-year real-estate maturity with short-lived tanks, dispensers, and canopy can strand collateral.21

The environmental gate runs in parallel and can end a deal on its own. SBA treats gas stations as a Special Use Facility: loans over $250,000 require at minimum an environmental questionnaire and a Records Search with Risk Assessment, any Recognized Environmental Condition triggers a Phase II, and confirmed contamination halts approval and disbursement unless the risk is shown to be sufficiently low, typically via a Section E-5 justification, with an Environmental Professional's reliance letter and E&O coverage required.24 The feasibility or market-study author does not itself perform the Phase I or Phase II ESA; that is a separate environmental professional's engagement the study references, not replaces.

  • Owner-occupied single-site acquisition or constructionSBA 7(a) (business plus real estate) or 504 (fixed assets only), with a special-purpose going-concern appraisal.
  • Change of ownership over $250,000Mandatory going-concern appraisal by a Certified General appraiser allocating land, building, equipment, and intangibles.23
  • Rural owner-operated station or travel center (population ≤ 50,000)USDA Business & Industry under the OneRD Guarantee Loan Initiative, with a feasibility study proving positive DSCR.27
  • Time-sensitive or pre-stabilization acquisitionBridge or hard-money capital, funded to collateral value, with a documented, DSCR-viable refinance exit into SBA or conventional debt.32
  • Renewable-energy system or efficiency upgradeUSDA REAP guaranteed loan; the grant portion is paused for FY2026 and REAP does not fund public retail EV charging.28
Study Types

Market study, feasibility study, appraisal: three questions.

These three documents answer different questions and are not substitutes. Lenders and sponsors conflate them constantly; SBA, USDA, and conventional underwriters do not.

What each document answers, and the standard that governs it.
DocumentQuestion answeredGoverning standard
AppraisalWhat is it worth, and how does value allocate? A going-concern opinion across real estate, FF&E, and business goodwill.USPAP (going-concern)
Market studyIs there demand? Trade-area traffic, trip capture, fuel and inside demand, and the competitive set.Trade-area demand analysis
Feasibility studyCan this site repay this loan? The market demand plus a 10-year pro forma, breakeven gallonage, DSCR by year, and a stressed-volume case.Lender / SBA / USDA underwriting

The distinction that governs a fuel-and-convenience file is that the asset is valued as a going concern, not as price per square foot or per pump. The Appraisal Institute defines going-concern value as the market value of all tangible and intangible assets of an established operating business, and for a station the package includes land and building, fueling improvements, in-store equipment, and business goodwill. Market participants transact on cash-flow multiples, principally a Gross Profit Multiplier or an overall capitalization rate applied to NOI; for modern branded urban California stations, GPMs generally run 3.00 to 5.00 and OARs 8.00 to 12.00 percent, with goodwill typically derived as a residual, the going-concern value less the depreciated cost of the tangible assets.2122 USPAP still requires separate values for the real estate and the personal property even inside a going-concern conclusion, because business value is more volatile than real estate and fueling equipment depreciates faster. Note a genuine divergence in the profession: some appraisers argue that non-chain stations carry little separable business value beyond real estate and FF&E, a disagreement lenders should expect and reconcile in the value allocation.22

One scope boundary is worth stating. A lender will typically require a Phase I Environmental Site Assessment, but the feasibility or market-study author does not perform the Phase I or Phase II ESA; that is a separate environmental professional's engagement. The feasibility work builds the revenue and expense model, computes breakeven gallonage and DSCR, and stresses volume and margin; it references, but does not opine on, environmental condition.

Fuel-and-convenience sub-segments, each with a distinct study scope

Fuel-and-Convenience Questions

Gas station and c-store feasibility and market-study questions.

Is a gas station valued as real estate or as a business?

As a business. Unlike a multi-tenant shopping center, a gas station with a convenience store is a going concern, and it is appraised as a business enterprise, meaning the market value of all tangible and intangible assets: land and building, fueling improvements (underground storage tanks, dispensers, canopy), in-store equipment, and business goodwill. Market participants buy and sell on cash-flow multiples, principally a Gross Profit Multiplier or an overall capitalization rate applied to net operating income, not on price per square foot or per pump. USPAP still requires the appraiser to state separate values for the real estate and the personal property inside the going-concern conclusion, because business value is more volatile than real estate and fueling equipment depreciates faster. Goodwill is usually derived as a residual: going-concern value less the depreciated cost of the tangible assets.

What is the difference between a market study, a feasibility study, and a going-concern appraisal for a gas station?

They answer three different questions and are not substitutes. A market study analyzes demand, traffic, trip capture, and competition for a defined trade area and answers whether there is demand. A feasibility study goes further, building a site-specific ten-year pro forma with breakeven gallonage, a stressed-volume case, and debt-service coverage by year, and answers whether this specific site can repay this specific loan; it is prepared by an independent third party with no stake in the outcome. A going-concern appraisal is an opinion of value that allocates across real estate, fixtures, and business goodwill. For a change of ownership of a special-purpose property over $250,000, SBA requires the going-concern appraisal be performed by a Certified General Real Property Appraiser, and it is a separate deliverable from the feasibility study.

Can a gas station or convenience store be financed with an SBA loan?

Yes. Unlike passive multi-tenant retail, an owner-operated gas station or convenience store is a core SBA asset, an owner-occupied special-purpose property eligible for both 7(a) and 504. Under SOP 50 10 8, effective June 1, 2025, the owner must occupy at least 51 percent of an existing building or 60 percent of new construction, and gas stations are named special-purpose properties, so a change-of-ownership over $250,000 requires a going-concern appraisal by a Certified General Real Property Appraiser allocating value across land, building, equipment, and intangibles. Special-purpose properties typically require a higher equity injection, commonly 15 to 20 percent or more. The 504 program finances only fixed assets, so where goodwill is large the transaction often routes to 7(a), which can finance the business plus the real estate in one loan.

How do environmental (UST) issues affect a gas-station loan?

Environmental liability from underground storage tanks is the single most common deal-killer. SBA treats gas stations as a Special Use Facility: loans over $250,000 require, at minimum, an environmental questionnaire and a Records Search with Risk Assessment; any Recognized Environmental Condition triggers a Phase II assessment; and confirmed contamination halts approval and disbursement unless the risk is shown to be sufficiently low, typically through a Section E-5 justification. A Phase I ESA under ASTM E1527-21 runs roughly $2,500 to $6,000, a Phase II can exceed $50,000, and historical remediation can run from $50,000 to more than $500,000, with environmental stigma sometimes cutting value by more than the remediation cost. Importantly, the feasibility or market-study author does not perform the Phase I or Phase II ESA; those are separate engagements by a qualified Environmental Professional that the study references rather than replaces.

Where does a convenience store actually make its money?

Inside the store, not at the pump. In 2025 fuel was 65.0 percent of sales dollars but only 38.8 percent of gross-profit dollars, while foodservice alone drove 38.9 percent of in-store gross profit. In-store sales reached a record $341.2 billion, the 23rd consecutive annual increase. Net fuel margin, after distribution, card fees, and retail operating costs, falls to about 13 cents per gallon from a roughly 36-cent gross, and operator-level analysis puts net profit after all allocations at just 3 to 7 cents per gallon. Well-run merchandise operations run 30 to 35 percent gross margins and foodservice can exceed 50 percent, which is why a feasibility pro forma that over-weights fuel gross profit and under-models inside-sales and foodservice capture is fragile.

Will electric vehicles make gas stations obsolete?

Not over a typical loan term, though demand is structurally flat-to-declining. U.S. gasoline consumption was 8.9 million barrels per day in 2025, down 1 percent year over year and 4 percent below 2019, and the EIA attributes forecast 2026 and 2027 declines principally to fleet fuel-economy gains, not EV adoption, because of the auto industry's five-to-seven-year design cycle. California modeling found zero-emission vehicles displaced only about 3.5 percent of gasoline demand in 2024 versus roughly 24 percent from fuel economy. EV charging is generally not yet profitable as a standalone c-store offering: a 2026 analysis of 4,000-plus DC fast-charging stations found a median of nine sessions per day, and McKinsey concluded that at roughly 15 percent utilization profitability is challenging. The lender takeaway is that gasoline demand is durable but flat-to-declining, so pro formas that assume rising per-site gallons must be scrutinized.

What fuel volume does a typical site sell, and why does it matter?

The average fueling site sells about 2,500 gallons per day, roughly 82,000 gallons per month, but that average masks an enormous distribution: bottom-quartile sites pump under 40,000 gallons per month, top-quartile sites over 150,000, and high-velocity interstate sites above 400,000. Gallonage is the primary value driver, and it correlates with, but is not determined by, raw traffic count. A documented Salton City, California site on a road with only 4,300 average annual daily traffic sold the same volume as an interstate site at 60,000, because of trucking-route logistics and a local moratorium. That is why a rigorous feasibility study computes breakeven gallonage and a stressed-volume case, and confirms per-site gallonage assumptions sit within a defensible quartile given trip origin, competition, and physical throughput, rather than applying a flat capture rate to a traffic count.

By Market

Gas station & c-store feasibility studies by state.

Fuel demand, store density, land cost, and the environmental and entitlement layer are all local. Explore the state markets where traffic, competition, and the regulatory regime determine whether a station pencils.

Underwriting a gas station or c-store? Start with the going-concern cash flow.

Feasibility Study Company prepares independent Gas Station & C-Store feasibility and market studies, built to the review standard your capital source applies. A methodology briefing walks through the analytical framework, the deliverable your capital source requires, and the current fuel-volume, margin, and cap-rate data for your format and trade area.

Request a methodology briefing
Sources

Data sources and dates.

Every figure on this page traces to a named authority. Fuel-and-convenience readings are basis-sensitive: gross margin is not net margin, a leased-fee cap rate is not a going-concern multiple, and a store-location count is not a business-entity count, as flagged throughout.

  1. NACS/NIQ TDLinx Convenience Industry Store Count (2026 edition, released January 2026) and NACS Industry Store Count fact sheet (June 2026): 151,975 U.S. convenience stores as of December 31, 2025 (down 280, the second consecutive annual decline); 122,620 fuel-selling stores (up 768, highest in eight years; 80.7% of stores); 63% owned by operators with 10 or fewer sites; one store per 2,257 people; state counts (Texas 16,504, California 12,143, Florida 9,730, New York 7,561, Georgia 7,092, Ohio 5,833, North Carolina 5,799, Michigan 4,957, Pennsylvania 4,784, Illinois 4,708; Texas +88, New York −143).
  2. NACS State of the Industry data (released April 15, 2026): in-store sales $341.2 billion (up 1.7%, 23rd consecutive increase); total industry sales $817.5 billion; fuel sales $476.3 billion (down 5.4% on an average price falling $3.30 to $3.11 as gallons rose 0.5%); fuel 65.0% of sales but 38.8% of gross profit; foodservice 28.5% of in-store sales and 38.9% of in-store gross profit; record $21.3 billion in card fees; 45,160 transactions per store per month; 2.75 million jobs.
  3. NACS, “Who Makes Money Selling Gas” (2025), citing the OPIS Retail Fuel Watch weekly report (January 30, 2025): gross retail fuel margin 35.7 cents per gallon; net margin about 13 cents after roughly 22 cents of retail expense; card fees 8.4 cents per gallon (2023 data).
  4. NACS, “Do Oil Companies Make Money on High Gas Prices?” (updated March 2025): 54.6% of fuel-selling stores are single-store operators.
  5. NACS, “Who Sells America's Fuel” (January 2026): the average fueling site sells about 2,500 gallons per day; convenience stores sell an estimated 80% of U.S. fuel; per-site gallonage distribution (bottom quartile under 40,000 gallons/month, top quartile over 150,000, interstate sites above 400,000).
  6. U.S. Energy Information Administration, Today in Energy (April 2026) and “Use of Gasoline” (Monthly Energy Review, March 2026): U.S. motor gasoline consumption 8.9 million barrels per day in 2025 (down 1% year over year, 4% below 2019); forecast 2026–2027 declines driven principally by fleet fuel economy, not EVs; light-duty vehicles ~91% of gasoline use; PADD 5 price/margin outlook on the Los Angeles refinery closure. (Forecasts labeled as such.)
  7. EIA State Energy Data System (SEDS) Table F10, 2023 vintage (latest complete state table): state gasoline consumption (Texas ~14.6 billion, California ~13.2 billion, Florida ~9.4 billion, New York ~5.2 billion, Georgia ~5.1 billion gallons).
  8. Raymond James, “Convenience Store Insight” (May 2026), citing OPIS: five-year average national retail margin of 39.2 cents per gallon (gasoline) and 53.3 cents (diesel).
  9. Stillwater Associates (2025): California zero-emission vehicles displaced about 3.5% of gasoline demand in 2024 (projected 4.9% by 2026, 7.1% by 2030) versus roughly 24% from fuel-economy gains. (Projections labeled as such.)
  10. IEA, Global EV Outlook 2025: EV oil displacement grew 30% to over 1.3 million barrels per day in 2024; U.S. EV sales about 1.6 million in 2024 (up ~10% year over year versus ~40% in China).
  11. NACS Magazine (June 2026): record $21.3 billion in credit and debit card fees (including $4.6 billion on taxes collected; 82% of sales transacted on cards), the second-highest operating cost after labor; total direct store operating expenses just under $166 billion (up 4.2%).
  12. CT Acquisitions, 2026 Buyer's Guide (citing NACS 2025 data): operator-level net profit of 3 to 7 cents per gallon; per-site gallonage distribution; merchandise 30–35% and foodservice 50%+ gross-margin context; new-build cost context. (Broker/aggregator source; directional.)
  13. IBISWorld (US, 2025–2026): 58,582 “Gas Stations with Convenience Stores” businesses (NAICS 44711) and 52,116 “Convenience Stores” businesses (2025), a business-entity basis not comparable to the NACS location count of 151,975.
  14. CoBank Knowledge Exchange (June 2025): industry fragmentation and consolidation; operators with 500-plus stores own 22.2% of the total.
  15. Convenience Store News (December 2025) and Capstone Partners (2025): 2024–2025 M&A (Sunoco/Parkland $9.1 billion; Alimentation Couche-Tard/GetGo $1.6 billion; Casey's acquisitions); strategic buyers ~89–93% of deal volume; baby-boomer succession as a structural driver; July 2025 reinstatement of 100% bonus depreciation.
  16. NACS Magazine Top 100 (March 2025): largest operators (7-Eleven ~12,414 U.S. stores, 8.2% of the total; Circle K / Alimentation Couche-Tard ~5,833; Casey's); only 22 chains exceed 400 locations.
  17. Matthews, 2025 Cap Rate Recap: convenience/gas NNN cap rates (credit deals low-to-mid 5%, short-term credit above 6%, smaller operators above 7% on guarantor risk); 10–15 bps compression following the July 2025 bonus-depreciation reinstatement. (Single-provider; directional.)
  18. The Boulder Group (October 2025): net-lease pricing and the transaction impact of 100% bonus-depreciation reinstatement.
  19. Commercial Property Executive and Offerd (Q2 2025): single-tenant net-lease retail cap rates ~6.96–6.97% in the first half of 2025 (up ~35–58 bps year over year from a 5.60% year-end-2022 low).
  20. STAX Real Estate (2026): Wawa NNN 4.83–5.20%; owner-operator going-concern multiples of ~2.5x–4.0x EBITDA for the business alone, or about 8x EBITDA for business plus premium real estate. (Single-broker; directional.)
  21. Retail Petroleum Consultants / gasvaluation.com (Society of Chief Appraisers presentation): going-concern versus leased-fee basis (a $100,000-cash-flow site at a 9%+ going-concern cap ≈ $1.0 million versus a 6.5% NNN leased-fee value ≈ $1.385 million); Gross Profit Multipliers 3.00–5.00 and OARs 8.00–12.00%; goodwill as a residual; the warning that fuel margins at 10-year highs “will not last the duration of a typical holding period”; loan-maturity and economic-life mismatch.
  22. New England Real Estate Journal, “Appraisal of Special Use Properties, Gas Stations”: going-concern (business enterprise) valuation; USPAP separate values for real estate and personal property; competition and cannibalization risk. AppraisersForum practitioner discussion: divergence on whether non-chain stations carry separable business/going-concern value.
  23. SBA SOP 50 10 8 (effective June 1, 2025); QuickRead (October 2025); Simply Business Valuation: gas stations as named special-purpose properties; owner-occupancy tests (51% existing, 60% new construction); change-of-ownership over $250,000 requires a going-concern appraisal by a Certified General Real Property Appraiser allocating value across land, building, equipment, and intangibles; 504 finances only fixed assets (goodwill uncollateralized); loan caps (7(a) and 504 up to $5 million).
  24. SBA environmental policy (SOP 50 10 8, Chapter 5 Section E and Appendix 7); SCS Engineers; St. Germain: gas stations as a Special Use Facility; environmental questionnaire and Records Search with Risk Assessment on loans over $250,000; Recognized Environmental Condition triggering a Phase II; confirmed contamination halting approval/disbursement absent a Section E-5 justification; Environmental Professional reliance letter with E&O coverage.
  25. Innowave Studio (2026) and North Texas Business Exchange: Phase I ESA (ASTM E1527-21) $2,500–$6,000 per parcel and Phase II $50,000+; historical remediation $50,000 to $500,000-plus; environmental stigma sometimes reducing value by more than the remediation cost.
  26. Bay Street Lending (July 2026) and Growth Corp: special-purpose equity injection commonly 15–20%+; 504 DSCR roughly 1.15x or higher; conventional down payments 20–30%+ with a lender-ordered appraisal and Phase I ESA for older or higher-risk sites.
  27. USDA Rural Development, Business & Industry (B&I) Guaranteed Loan Program under the OneRD Guarantee Loan Initiative (7 CFR Part 5001); OCC Community Developments Insights (June 2025); August Brown (2026): rural (population 50,000 or fewer) eligibility; guarantee 80%/70%/60% by loan size; up to $25 million; minimum equity 10% (existing) / 20% (startup); feasibility study effectively mandatory for startups and expansions.
  28. USDA Rural Energy for America Program (REAP); Federal Register REAP NOFO FY2025–2027; NC Clean Energy Technology Center (March 2026); DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center: REAP guaranteed loans (80%) with the grant portion paused for FY2026 pending new rules; REAP does not fund public retail EV charging; 67,916 public DC fast-charging ports as of January 1, 2026.
  29. Transportation Energy Institute / Electric Era / Paren, “2026 State of Retail-First EV Charging” (June 1, 2026, analyzing 4,000+ DC fast-charging stations on Q4 2025 session data); McKinsey, “Can public EV fast-charging stations be profitable in the United States?”; NACS (January 2026): median of 9 DC-fast-charging sessions per day (42 near a grocery store); profitability challenging at ~15% utilization; 76,725 public charging locations and 235,077 outlets, with EVs at 2–3% of vehicles on the road. (Current-condition analysis; directional.)
  30. feasibility-study.com, “Gas Station Feasibility Study Challenges”; MMCG Invest; Kalibrate: the Salton City case (a 4,300-AADT site selling the volume of a 60,000-AADT I-10 site); institutional site selection using AADT plus anonymized mobile-location and gravity/simulation models; a representative 8-dispenser BP project modeled to about $6.07 million total development cost (~80% loan-to-cost).
  31. analytics.loan; C-Store Dive (2025); Upside (2025); getharvest.com: feasibility and DSCR-by-year framing; Murphy USA's characterization of fuel-margin volatility as “the single greatest factor in the volatility of earnings of the business”; card fees historically ~10 cents per gallon; average revenue per c-store transaction ~$12.13; roughly 57% of fuel customers coming inside; operating-expense benchmarking (labor 15–22% of revenue).
  32. Gelt Financial (2026), FCTD, and AVANA Capital: bridge/hard-money terms in 2026 (rates 9–14%+, 2–4 points, 60–75% LTV, terms of 6 months to 3 years), exit-dependent on a refinance into conventional or SBA debt once volumes stabilize.