Wholesale Trade ·NAICS 4237

NAICS 4237 · IRS SOI 2013 (C corp) · Census CBP 2023

Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers - Industry Benchmarks

597 SBA loans on record, $563M in volume, for NAICS 4237.

4.5%
Net margin
N/A
Workers employed
N/A
Avg payroll / employee
$563M
SBA lending, FY20–26

Data updated August 2026

The verdict · NAICS 4237

Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers runs a 4.5% pre-tax net margin - below the national median - across 20K establishments employing N/A workers.

4.5%
Pre-tax net margin (IRS SOI)
N/A
Workers employed (Census CBP)
N/A
Avg payroll / employee
$563M
SBA lending, FY20–26

Use Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers's NAICS benchmark as a comparison point, not a forecast for one business.

Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers 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 Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers

Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers sits inside Wholesale Trade at a 4.5% net margin (below the national median), $100.9B in aggregate receipts across 12,551 returns, averaging $8.0B per establishment.

20,116 establishments employ N/A workers. California leads employment, followed by Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers sits in the 43rd percentile for net margin among 4-digit NAICS industries with reported data.

Profit Margin

4.5%

Net income ÷ total receipts (IRS SOI)

Total Receipts

$100.9B

Annual revenue (IRS SOI)

Net Income

$4.5B

Pre-tax net income

Employment

N/A

Total employees (Census CBP)

Avg Payroll / Employee

N/A

Annual compensation

Establishments

20,116

Business locations

Release-over-release change

What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023

establishment count decreased by 160. 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 Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers revenue goes

Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers margin vs national reference points

Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers net margin 14.8%
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
12,551 returns 100%

Margin: 4.5% · Receipts: $100.9B

Financial Detail

Total Tax Returns Filed
12,551
Avg Receipts per Business
$8.0B
Annual Payroll (Total)
$25.0B

Sub-Industries

Industry Profit Margin
Hardware Merchant Wholesalers

NAICS 42371

 N/A
Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies (Hydronics) Merchant Wholesalers

NAICS 42372

 N/A
Refrigeration Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers

NAICS 42374

 N/A
Warm Air Heating and Air-Conditioning Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers

NAICS 42373

 N/A

Top States by Employment

State Employment
California 31,084
Ohio 13,943
Pennsylvania 11,199
Michigan 9,138
New Jersey 8,222
Wisconsin 8,089
Indiana 7,435
Washington 5,722
Minnesota 4,934
Connecticut 3,946

Showing top 10 of 51 states

SBA Lending Activity

SBA FY2020–2026

SBA Loans Approved

597

Total Loan Volume

$563M

Avg Loan Size

$942K

Jobs Supported

5,001

Program Breakdown

7(a) 482 (81%)
504 115 (19%)

Top SBA Lender

The Huntington National Bank

39 loans in this industry

New Business Share

18.1% of borrowers were new/startup businesses

Annual Lending Trend (7 yrs)

2020
80
2021
110
2022
90
2023
95
2024
113
2025
95
2026
14

View SBA lending rankings →

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the average revenue for Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers?
$100.9B in total annual receipts across all Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers businesses. Average per business: $8.0B.
How profitable is Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers?
4.5% net profit margin, below the national median.
How many businesses are in Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers?
20,116 business establishments.
What is the average payroll per employee in Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers?
Average payroll data for Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers is not available in the current Census CBP dataset.
Which states have the most Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers employment?
California leads with 31,084 workers. Ohio (13,943) and Pennsylvania (11,199) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers receive?
Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers businesses received 597 SBA loans totaling $563 million between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $942K. These loans supported 5,001 jobs at origination. Most lending (81%) came through the SBA 7(a) program.

Nationwide industries with similar benchmark drivers

Two IRS/Census peer sets for Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers, both at NAICS level 4 and excluding this code so the neighborhoods are not self-links.

According to IRS SOI 2013 IRS Statistics of Income, its reported pre-tax net margin ranks #72 of 126 at that same detail level.

Read with this industry: Understanding profit margins by industry · Wholesale Trade · 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 4237 · 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

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.