Employment
116,337
Total employees (Census CBP)
Wholesale Trade ·NAICS 42481
NAICS 42481 · IRS SOI 2023 · Census CBP
Beer and Ale Merchant Wholesalers - Industry Benchmarks
$64,598/yr average annual pay, with 118 SBA loans on record for NAICS 42481.
- 4.1%
- Wholesale Trade sector margin
- 116K
- Workers employed
- $64,598/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $72M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Data updated July 2026
The verdict · NAICS 42481
Texas leads Beer and Ale Merchant Wholesalers activity nationally. IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at this NAICS level, but the broader Wholesale Trade sector runs a 4.1% net margin.
- 4.1%
- Wholesale Trade sector margin (IRS SOI)
- 116K
- Workers employed (Census CBP)
- $64,598/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $72M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Benchmarking Insights for Beer and Ale Merchant Wholesalers
Beer and Ale Merchant Wholesalers sits inside Wholesale Trade, a sector that runs a 4.1% net margin overall.
1,915 establishments employ 116,337 workers (60.8/location) at $64,598/yr average annual pay. Texas leads employment, followed by California and Illinois.
Avg Payroll / Employee
$64,598/yr
Annual compensation
Establishments
1,915
Business locations
Release-over-release change
What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023
Employment increased by 1,203; establishment count increased by 16. This comparison uses two published national Census County Business Patterns releases; suppressed fields are omitted rather than estimated.
Workforce scale
Financial Detail
- Annual Payroll (Total)
- $7.5B
- Avg Employees per Establishment
- 60.8
Sub-Industries
| Industry | Profit Margin |
|---|---|
| Beer and Ale Merchant Wholesalers NAICS 424810 | N/A |
Top States by Employment
| State | Employment |
|---|---|
| Texas | 13,247 |
| California | 9,586 |
| Illinois | 4,268 |
| Ohio | 4,205 |
| Michigan | 3,713 |
| North Carolina | 3,480 |
| Pennsylvania | 3,242 |
| Georgia | 3,074 |
| Arizona | 2,892 |
| Wisconsin | 2,733 |
Showing top 10 of 51 states
SBA Lending Activity
SBA FY2020–2026SBA Loans Approved
118
Total Loan Volume
$72M
Avg Loan Size
$613K
Jobs Supported
1,229
Program Breakdown
7(a) 104 (88%)
504 14 (12%)
Top SBA Lender
Manufacturers and Traders Trust Company
10 loans in this industry
New Business Share
27.1% of borrowers were new/startup businesses
Annual Lending Trend (7 yrs)
2020 16
2021 24
2022 26
2023 11
2024 17
2025 23
2026 1
Frequently Asked Questions
How profitable is Beer and Ale Merchant Wholesalers?
IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at the NAICS 42481 level. Texas leads this industry nationally. The broader Wholesale Trade sector runs a 4.1% net margin (IRS SOI 2023).
How many businesses are in Beer and Ale Merchant Wholesalers?
1,915 business establishments. Together they employ 116,337 workers.
What is the average payroll per employee in Beer and Ale Merchant Wholesalers?
$64,598/yr average annual pay per employee. Businesses average 60.8 employees per establishment.
Which states have the most Beer and Ale Merchant Wholesalers employment?
Texas leads with 13,247 workers. California (9,586) and Illinois (4,268) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does Beer and Ale Merchant Wholesalers receive?
Beer and Ale Merchant Wholesalers businesses received 118 SBA loans totaling $72 million between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $613K. These loans supported 1,229 jobs at origination. Most lending (88%) 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: Its Census employment total exceeds 65% of that same 551-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 workforce scale
Same NAICS detail level, ordered by the smallest difference in reported Census employment.
Benchmarking Beer and Ale Merchant Wholesalers
- No margin data, check the parent industry. Browse Wholesale Trade
- 1,915 establishments, 116,337 workers. Payroll benchmarks
- 118 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 42481 · 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.