NAICS 238 · IRS SOI 2013 (C corp) · Census CBP 2023

Specialty Trade Contractors - Industry Benchmarks

$71,571/yr average annual pay, with 34,529 SBA loans on record for NAICS 238.

4.3%
Net margin: 5.0M
Workers employed: $71,571/yr
Avg payroll / employee: $14.8B
SBA lending, FY20–26

Data updated August 2026

The verdict · NAICS 238

Specialty Trade Contractors runs a 4.3% pre-tax net margin - below the national median - across 521K establishments employing 5.0M workers.

4.3%
Pre-tax net margin (IRS SOI): 5.0M
Workers employed (Census CBP): $71,571/yr
Avg payroll / employee: $14.8B
SBA lending, FY20–26

Use Specialty Trade Contractors's NAICS benchmark as a comparison point, not a forecast for one business.

Specialty Trade Contractors is reported here with financial measures from IRS Statistics of Income and workforce measures from Census County Business Patterns. The page keeps those source systems distinct, shows unavailable fields rather than estimating them, and links the underlying industry context so readers can compare the same NAICS activity before interpreting a margin or payroll figure.

Source: IRS SOI 2013 (C corporation headline) and Census County Business Patterns 2023

Benchmarking Insights for Specialty Trade Contractors

Specialty Trade Contractors sits inside Construction at a 4.3% net margin (below the national median), $601.1B in aggregate receipts across 435,053 returns, averaging $1.4B per establishment.

521,315 establishments employ 4,986,759 workers (9.6/location) at $71,571/yr average annual pay. California leads employment, followed by Texas and Florida.

Specialty Trade Contractors sits in the 92nd percentile for employment and the 41st percentile for net margin among 3-digit NAICS industries with reported data.

Profit Margin

4.3%

Net income ÷ total receipts (IRS SOI)

Total Receipts

$601.1B

Annual revenue (IRS SOI)

Net Income

$25.8B

Pre-tax net income

Employment

4,986,759

Total employees (Census CBP)

Avg Payroll / Employee

$71,571/yr

Annual compensation

Establishments

521,315

Business locations

Release-over-release change

What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023

Employment increased by 213,538; establishment count increased by 10,512. This comparison uses two published national Census County Business Patterns releases; suppressed fields are omitted rather than estimated.

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Where each dollar of Specialty Trade Contractors revenue goes

Receipts decomposition, IRS Statistics of Income 2023 aggregate for Specialty Trade Contractors

Workforce scale

Establishment size, Specialty Trade Contractors (Census SUSB)

Specialty Trade Contractors margin vs national reference points

Specialty Trade Contractors net margin 14.3%

Cross-industry median (5%)

p25/median/p75 = 3%/5%/7%

Business Structure Breakdown

Per-entity IRS SOI tables at their own vintages, shares only when every row shares one year (never mix 2013/2017/2022 populations).

C Corporation SOI 2013

435,053 returns

Margin: 4.3% · Receipts: $601.1B

Sole Proprietorship SOI 2022

2,478,691 returns

Margin: 15.7% · Receipts: $251.8B

Financial Detail

Total Tax Returns Filed: 435,053
Avg Receipts per Business: $1.4B
Annual Payroll (Total): $356.9B
Avg Employees per Establishment: 9.6

Sub-Industries

Industry	Profit Margin	Employment	Avg Payroll/Emp
Building Equipment Contractors NAICS 2382	4.0%	2,381,266	$75,980/yr
Building Finishing Contractors NAICS 2383	N/A	863,952	$60,715/yr
Foundation, Structure, and Building Exterior Contractors NAICS 2381	4.9%	959,465	$67,882/yr
Other Specialty Trade Contractors NAICS 2389	4.2%	782,076	$74,662/yr

Top States by Employment

State	Employment	Establishments	Annual Payroll	Avg Payroll/Emp
California	582,703	53,834	$45.8B	$78,552/yr
Texas	479,699	35,485	$32.6B	$67,883/yr
Florida	386,498	46,220	$22.3B	$57,626/yr
New York	244,452	30,711	$19.2B	$78,486/yr
Pennsylvania	166,915	18,285	$12.6B	$75,225/yr
North Carolina	156,911	17,542	$9.8B	$62,574/yr
Illinois	153,878	18,685	$13.4B	$87,013/yr
Washington	149,030	16,412	$11.8B	$79,178/yr
Ohio	147,302	14,410	$10.7B	$72,870/yr
Arizona	142,590	10,521	$9.5B	$66,804/yr

Showing top 10 of 51 states

SBA Lending Activity

SBA FY2020–2026

SBA Loans Approved

34,529

Total Loan Volume

$14.8B

Avg Loan Size

$430K

Jobs Supported

324,487

Program Breakdown

7(a) 31,307 (91%)

504 3,222 (9%)

Top SBA Lender

The Huntington National Bank

4,254 loans in this industry

New Business Share

22.8% of borrowers were new/startup businesses

Annual Lending Trend (7 yrs)

2020

4,041

2021

4,435

2022

4,576

2023

5,687

2024

7,216

2025

7,528

2026

1,046

View SBA lending rankings →

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the average revenue for Specialty Trade Contractors?

$601.1B in total annual receipts across all Specialty Trade Contractors businesses. Average per business: $1.4B.

How profitable is Specialty Trade Contractors?

4.3% net profit margin, below the national median.

How many businesses are in Specialty Trade Contractors?

521,315 business establishments. Together they employ 4,986,759 workers.

What is the average payroll per employee in Specialty Trade Contractors?

$71,571/yr average annual pay per employee. Businesses average 9.6 employees per establishment.

Which states have the most Specialty Trade Contractors employment?

California leads with 582,703 workers. Texas (479,699) and Florida (386,498) round out the top three.

How much SBA lending does Specialty Trade Contractors receive?

Specialty Trade Contractors businesses received 34,529 SBA loans totaling $14.8 billion between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $430K. These loans supported 324,487 jobs at origination. Most lending (91%) came through the SBA 7(a) program.

Nationwide industries with similar benchmark drivers

Two IRS/Census peer sets for Specialty Trade Contractors, both at NAICS level 3 and excluding this code so the neighborhoods are not self-links.

According to Census County Business Patterns 2023, Specialty Trade Contractors ranks #6 of 77 U.S. industries at the 3-digit NAICS level by total employment. According to IRS SOI 2013 IRS Statistics of Income, its reported pre-tax net margin ranks #44 of 75 at that same detail level.

Similar reported net margin

Nearest peer industries by ABS(IRS pre-tax margin) (4.3% here).

Transportation Equipment Manufacturing 4.3% Insurance Carriers and Related Activities 4.3% Waste Management and Remediation Services 4.1%

Similar workforce scale

Nearest peer industries by ABS(Census employment) (4,986,759 here).

Educational Services 3,926,820 Management of Companies and Enterprises 3,855,720 Social Assistance 3,742,670

Read with this industry: Understanding profit margins by industry · Construction · Rankings

Disclaimer: Public IRS/Census data, not financial or tax advice. See our full disclaimer.

Sources: IRS Statistics of Income (SOI) Business Tax Statistics · Census Bureau County Business Patterns 2023

NAICS 238 · CBP 2023 · IRS SOI 2013

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, which released its 2023 County Business Patterns dataset in June 2025, PlainBizBench benchmarks 2,002 U.S. industries against Internal Revenue Service Statistics of Income data. See our methodology for the full compilation process.

Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns / SUSB Industry employment scale, payroll, and firm-size benchmarks · 2023 Accessed 2026-07-06

Every figure on PlainBizBench is rendered directly from federal source data, no number is typed in by an editor. This page aggregates profit-margin, payroll, entity-type, and SBA-lending benchmarks for this industry, live from the dataset. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.

Disclaimer: Public IRS/Census data, not financial or tax advice. See our full disclaimer.