Profit Margin
4.4%
Net income ÷ total receipts (IRS SOI)
Wholesale Trade ·NAICS 4238
NAICS 4238 · IRS SOI 2023 · Census CBP
Machinery, Equipment, and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers - Industry Benchmarks
$87,675/yr average annual pay, with 1,655 SBA loans on record for NAICS 4238.
- 4.4%
- Net margin
- 800K
- Workers employed
- $87,675/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $1.3B
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Data updated July 2026
The verdict · NAICS 4238
Machinery, Equipment, and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers runs a 4.4% pre-tax net margin - below the national median - across 55K establishments employing 800K workers.
- 4.4%
- Pre-tax net margin (IRS SOI)
- 800K
- Workers employed (Census CBP)
- $87,675/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $1.3B
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Benchmarking Insights for Machinery, Equipment, and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers
Machinery, Equipment, and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers sits inside Wholesale Trade at a 4.4% net margin (below the national median), $350.3B in aggregate receipts across 49,899 returns, averaging $7.0B per establishment.
55,426 establishments employ 799,752 workers (14.4/location) at $87,675/yr average annual pay. Texas leads employment, followed by California and Illinois.
Total Receipts
$350.3B
Annual revenue (IRS SOI)
Net Income
$15.4B
Pre-tax net income
Employment
799,752
Total employees (Census CBP)
Avg Payroll / Employee
$87,675/yr
Annual compensation
Establishments
55,426
Business locations
Release-over-release change
What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023
Employment increased by 33,024; establishment count increased by 540. This comparison uses two published national Census County Business Patterns releases; suppressed fields are omitted rather than estimated.
Where each dollar of Machinery, Equipment, and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers revenue goes
Workforce scale
Machinery, Equipment, and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers margin vs national reference points
Machinery, Equipment, and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers net margin 14.7%
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
49,899 returns 100%
Margin: 4.4% · Receipts: $350.3B
Financial Detail
- Total Tax Returns Filed
- 49,899
- Avg Receipts per Business
- $7.0B
- Annual Payroll (Total)
- $70.1B
- Avg Employees per Establishment
- 14.4
Sub-Industries
| Industry | Profit Margin |
|---|---|
| Construction and Mining (except Oil Well) Machinery and Equipment Merchant Wholesalers NAICS 42381 | N/A |
| Farm and Garden Machinery and Equipment Merchant Wholesalers NAICS 42382 | N/A |
| Industrial Machinery and Equipment Merchant Wholesalers NAICS 42383 | N/A |
| Industrial Supplies Merchant Wholesalers NAICS 42384 | N/A |
| Service Establishment Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers NAICS 42385 | N/A |
| Transportation Equipment and Supplies (except Motor Vehicle) Merchant Wholesalers NAICS 42386 | N/A |
Top States by Employment
| State | Employment |
|---|---|
| Texas | 91,483 |
| California | 65,959 |
| Illinois | 49,260 |
| Ohio | 41,717 |
| Florida | 39,388 |
| Pennsylvania | 33,533 |
| Michigan | 29,403 |
| Georgia | 28,793 |
| North Carolina | 27,390 |
| New York | 23,609 |
Showing top 10 of 51 states
SBA Lending Activity
SBA FY2020–2026SBA Loans Approved
1,655
Total Loan Volume
$1.3B
Avg Loan Size
$791K
Jobs Supported
13,283
Program Breakdown
7(a) 1,427 (86%)
504 228 (14%)
Top SBA Lender
The Huntington National Bank
89 loans in this industry
New Business Share
17.5% of borrowers were new/startup businesses
Annual Lending Trend (7 yrs)
2020 210
2021 283
2022 224
2023 257
2024 329
2025 300
2026 52
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the average revenue for Machinery, Equipment, and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers?
$350.3B in total annual receipts across all Machinery, Equipment, and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers businesses. Average per business: $7.0B.
How profitable is Machinery, Equipment, and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers?
4.4% net profit margin, below the national median.
How many businesses are in Machinery, Equipment, and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers?
55,426 business establishments. Together they employ 799,752 workers.
What is the average payroll per employee in Machinery, Equipment, and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers?
$87,675/yr average annual pay per employee. Businesses average 14.4 employees per establishment.
Which states have the most Machinery, Equipment, and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers employment?
Texas leads with 91,483 workers. California (65,959) and Illinois (49,260) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does Machinery, Equipment, and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers receive?
Machinery, Equipment, and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers businesses received 1,655 SBA loans totaling $1.3 billion between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $791K. These loans supported 13,283 jobs at origination. Most lending (86%) 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: Machinery, Equipment, and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers reports a higher net margin than 41% of the 126 IRS-tracked industries at the same NAICS detail level. Its Census employment total exceeds 82% 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 Machinery, Equipment, and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers
- Net margin: 4.4% vs sector. Browse Wholesale Trade
- 55,426 establishments, 799,752 workers. Payroll benchmarks
- 1,655 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 4238 · 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.