Porta Potty Unit Types, and Who Actually Rents Them
We read 1,976 independent porta potty companies' own websites and recorded which kinds of unit each one says it rents. 1,771 of them named at least one. Updated regularly.
| Name | Companies | Sample |
|---|---|---|
| Standard portable toilet | 1,714 | 87% of 1,976 checked |
| Restroom trailer | 1,125 | 57% of 1,976 checked |
| ADA accessible unit | 1,094 | 55% of 1,976 checked |
| Hand-wash station | 1,079 | 55% of 1,976 checked |
| Flushing unit | 856 | 43% of 1,976 checked |
| Shower trailer | 262 | 13% of 1,976 checked |
How to read this
A company counts for a unit type when it says so on its own website. A blank means it doesn't say, not that it can't supply. Plenty of yards keep a trailer and never mention it online. That cuts both ways and it is why the denominator is printed next to every figure on this site.
The same figures broken out by state, plus rental rates and market size, are in the industry statistics and on the state map.
What each one is for
- Restroom trailer A towed trailer with separate stalls, running water, lighting and climate control. A different product from a portable toilet, at a different price.
- ADA accessible unit Wheelchair accessible: a wider door, a ground-level entry, grab bars and room to turn. A public event generally needs at least one, and they run out first.
- Hand-wash station A freestanding sink station, ordered alongside the units rather than built into them. Food service on site usually makes these non-optional.
- Flushing unit A foot-pump flush and a small sink inside the unit. The usual step up for a wedding or a corporate event where a standard unit reads as too rough.
- Shower trailer Shower stalls on a trailer. Disaster response, film crews, long remote jobs and multi-day festivals.
- Standard portable toilet The basic unit almost every yard carries. Serviced weekly on a long rental, dropped and collected for a one-day event.
Which one you actually want
Almost every booking comes down to one question: is a standard unit acceptable here? For a job site, a farm field, a festival campsite or a building plot, it is, and anything else is money spent on nothing. For a wedding, a corporate event, or anywhere guests are dressed up and there is no other option within walking distance, it usually is not, and that is what the flushing unit and the restroom trailer exist for.
The step between those two is bigger than it sounds. A flushing unit is still a single portable cubicle, just a better one, with a foot pump and a small sink inside. A restroom trailer is a towed building with separate stalls, plumbing, lighting and climate control, and it needs level ground, a power supply or a generator, and a vehicle that can get it into position. It is a different product with different site requirements, not a nicer version of the same thing.
The other two are additions rather than alternatives. An ADA unit is something you include rather than something you opt into: any event open to the public should have at least one, and industry guidance puts it at about 5% of the total. Hand-wash stations are ordered alongside the toilets at roughly one per four where food is being served, unless you have gone with flushing units, which carry their own sink.
What each type costs
Almost nobody in this trade publishes rates, which is the finding this whole site is built on. What is worth knowing before you call is the shape of the pricing rather than a single number: a standard unit and a restroom trailer are not two points on one scale, they are different products an order of magnitude apart, and a flushing or ADA unit sits between them. The pricing page carries the current ranges by unit type, per week and per month, and says what each one is based on.
Event pricing works differently from long-term pricing and the two are easy to confuse. A long-term rate is quoted per month and assumes weekly servicing for the whole term. An event rate is quoted per unit for the event, with delivery and collection on top, and a single weekend can cost close to what a month on a job site costs.
Two things move those numbers more than the unit type does. How often it is serviced, since a unit handles roughly 200 to 250 uses between visits and a busy site needs more than the weekly default. And how far the yard is from you, because a portable toilet is cheap and driving a pump truck to it is not. The pricing page has the full breakdown, and rates by state shows how far the geography moves it.
The gap between what is rented and what is listed
Read the table above carefully and something odd stands out: restroom trailers appear on more company websites than standard portable toilets do. No yard rents trailers and not standard units. What the table measures is what companies choose to write about, and a trailer is worth a page on your website in a way that the basic unit everyone carries is not.
So treat high coverage as a reliable signal and low coverage as a weak one. If a company mentions a shower trailer, they almost certainly have one. If they do not mention a standard unit, that tells you nothing at all. It is the same reason every figure on this site is printed with the denominator next to it.