Profit Margin
1.9%
Net income ÷ total receipts (IRS SOI)
Wholesale Trade ·NAICS 4235
NAICS 4235 · IRS SOI 2023 · Census CBP
Metal and Mineral (except Petroleum) Merchant Wholesalers - Industry Benchmarks
$86,059/yr average annual pay, with 227 SBA loans on record for NAICS 4235.
- 1.9%
- Net margin
- 147K
- Workers employed
- $86,059/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $215M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Data updated July 2026
The verdict · NAICS 4235
Metal and Mineral (except Petroleum) Merchant Wholesalers runs a 1.9% pre-tax net margin - significantly below average, typical of high-volume, low-margin sectors - across 9K establishments employing 147K workers.
- 1.9%
- Pre-tax net margin (IRS SOI)
- 147K
- Workers employed (Census CBP)
- $86,059/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $215M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Benchmarking Insights for Metal and Mineral (except Petroleum) Merchant Wholesalers
Metal and Mineral (except Petroleum) Merchant Wholesalers sits inside Wholesale Trade at a 1.9% net margin (significantly below average, typical of high-volume, low-margin sectors), $128.0B in aggregate receipts across 6,122 returns, averaging $20.9B per establishment.
8,892 establishments employ 147,358 workers (16.6/location) at $86,059/yr average annual pay. Texas leads employment, followed by California and Illinois.
Total Receipts
$128.0B
Annual revenue (IRS SOI)
Net Income
$2.5B
Pre-tax net income
Employment
147,358
Total employees (Census CBP)
Avg Payroll / Employee
$86,059/yr
Annual compensation
Establishments
8,892
Business locations
Release-over-release change
What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023
Employment increased by 3,802; establishment count decreased by 40. This comparison uses two published national Census County Business Patterns releases; suppressed fields are omitted rather than estimated.
Where each dollar of Metal and Mineral (except Petroleum) Merchant Wholesalers revenue goes
Workforce scale
Metal and Mineral (except Petroleum) Merchant Wholesalers margin vs national reference points
Metal and Mineral (except Petroleum) Merchant Wholesalers net margin 6.5%
Cross-industry median (5%)
p25/median/p75 = 3%/5%/8%
Business Structure Breakdown
How businesses in this industry are legally structured (IRS SOI)
C Corporation
6,122 returns 100%
Margin: 1.9% · Receipts: $128.0B
Financial Detail
- Total Tax Returns Filed
- 6,122
- Avg Receipts per Business
- $20.9B
- Annual Payroll (Total)
- $12.7B
- Avg Employees per Establishment
- 16.6
Sub-Industries
| Industry | Profit Margin |
|---|---|
| Coal and Other Mineral and Ore Merchant Wholesalers NAICS 42352 | N/A |
| Metal Service Centers and Other Metal Merchant Wholesalers NAICS 42351 | N/A |
Top States by Employment
| State | Employment |
|---|---|
| Texas | 19,436 |
| California | 13,647 |
| Illinois | 9,584 |
| Ohio | 9,536 |
| Pennsylvania | 6,932 |
| Michigan | 6,833 |
| Indiana | 6,491 |
| Florida | 5,646 |
| Georgia | 4,614 |
| New York | 4,405 |
Showing top 10 of 51 states
SBA Lending Activity
SBA FY2020–2026SBA Loans Approved
227
Total Loan Volume
$215M
Avg Loan Size
$945K
Jobs Supported
2,137
Program Breakdown
7(a) 194 (85%)
504 33 (15%)
Top SBA Lender
The Huntington National Bank
24 loans in this industry
New Business Share
28.2% of borrowers were new/startup businesses
Annual Lending Trend (7 yrs)
2020 23
2021 37
2022 41
2023 27
2024 51
2025 38
2026 10
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the average revenue for Metal and Mineral (except Petroleum) Merchant Wholesalers?
$128.0B in total annual receipts across all Metal and Mineral (except Petroleum) Merchant Wholesalers businesses. Average per business: $20.9B.
How profitable is Metal and Mineral (except Petroleum) Merchant Wholesalers?
1.9% net profit margin, significantly below average, typical of high-volume, low-margin sectors.
How many businesses are in Metal and Mineral (except Petroleum) Merchant Wholesalers?
8,892 business establishments. Together they employ 147,358 workers.
What is the average payroll per employee in Metal and Mineral (except Petroleum) Merchant Wholesalers?
$86,059/yr average annual pay per employee. Businesses average 16.6 employees per establishment.
Which states have the most Metal and Mineral (except Petroleum) Merchant Wholesalers employment?
Texas leads with 19,436 workers. California (13,647) and Illinois (9,584) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does Metal and Mineral (except Petroleum) Merchant Wholesalers receive?
Metal and Mineral (except Petroleum) Merchant Wholesalers businesses received 227 SBA loans totaling $215 million between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $945K. These loans supported 2,137 jobs at origination. Most lending (85%) came through the SBA 7(a) program.
Comparable industry benchmarks
These links are calculated from the current national dataset. They are comparison paths, not recommendations or evidence that businesses operate alike.
How this ranks: Metal and Mineral (except Petroleum) Merchant Wholesalers reports a higher net margin than 13% of the 126 IRS-tracked industries at the same NAICS detail level. Its Census employment total exceeds 42% of that same 259-industry cohort. Calculated by ranking this industry's reported value against every other industry at the same NAICS digit-level, not the whole dataset: comparing a 6-digit detail industry to a 2-digit sector would mix incompatible scales.
Closest reported net margins
Same NAICS detail level, ordered by the smallest difference in reported IRS pre-tax margin.
Closest workforce scale
Same NAICS detail level, ordered by the smallest difference in reported Census employment.
Benchmarking Metal and Mineral (except Petroleum) Merchant Wholesalers
- Net margin: 1.9% vs sector. Browse Wholesale Trade
- 8,892 establishments, 147,358 workers. Payroll benchmarks
- 227 SBA loans on record. SBA lending 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 4235 · Data year: 2023
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
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.