Profit Margin
1.5%
Net income ÷ total receipts (IRS SOI)
Retail Trade ·NAICS 4411
NAICS 4411 · IRS SOI 2023 · Census CBP
Automobile Dealers - Industry Benchmarks
$76,358/yr average annual pay, with 2,096 SBA loans on record for NAICS 4411.
- 1.5%
- Net margin
- 1.3M
- Workers employed
- $76,358/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $1.8B
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Data updated July 2026
The verdict · NAICS 4411
Automobile Dealers runs a 1.5% pre-tax net margin - significantly below average, typical of high-volume, low-margin sectors - across 47K establishments employing 1.3M workers.
- 1.5%
- Pre-tax net margin (IRS SOI)
- 1.3M
- Workers employed (Census CBP)
- $76,358/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $1.8B
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Benchmarking Insights for Automobile Dealers
Automobile Dealers sits inside Retail Trade at a 1.5% net margin (significantly below average, typical of high-volume, low-margin sectors), $715.6B in aggregate receipts across 44,973 returns, averaging $15.9B per establishment.
47,057 establishments employ 1,293,388 workers (27.5/location) at $76,358/yr average annual pay. California leads employment, followed by Texas and Florida.
Total Receipts
$715.6B
Annual revenue (IRS SOI)
Net Income
$10.8B
Pre-tax net income
Employment
1,293,388
Total employees (Census CBP)
Avg Payroll / Employee
$76,358/yr
Annual compensation
Establishments
47,057
Business locations
Release-over-release change
What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023
Employment decreased by 5,269; establishment count decreased by 385. This comparison uses two published national Census County Business Patterns releases; suppressed fields are omitted rather than estimated.
Where each dollar of Automobile Dealers revenue goes
Workforce scale
Automobile Dealers margin vs national reference points
Automobile Dealers net margin 5.0%
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
44,973 returns 100%
Margin: 1.5% · Receipts: $715.6B
Financial Detail
- Total Tax Returns Filed
- 44,973
- Avg Receipts per Business
- $15.9B
- Annual Payroll (Total)
- $98.8B
- Avg Employees per Establishment
- 27.5
Sub-Industries
| Industry | Profit Margin |
|---|---|
| New Car Dealers NAICS 44111 | N/A |
| Used Car Dealers NAICS 44112 | N/A |
Top States by Employment
| State | Employment |
|---|---|
| California | 124,618 |
| Texas | 124,436 |
| Florida | 99,767 |
| New York | 54,219 |
| Pennsylvania | 53,836 |
| Ohio | 50,655 |
| Illinois | 49,195 |
| Georgia | 43,999 |
| North Carolina | 43,333 |
| Michigan | 41,346 |
Showing top 10 of 51 states
SBA Lending Activity
SBA FY2020–2026SBA Loans Approved
2,096
Total Loan Volume
$1.8B
Avg Loan Size
$842K
Jobs Supported
19,288
Program Breakdown
7(a) 1,555 (74%)
504 541 (26%)
Top SBA Lender
Northeast Bank
165 loans in this industry
New Business Share
17.5% of borrowers were new/startup businesses
Annual Lending Trend (7 yrs)
2020 263
2021 371
2022 301
2023 312
2024 351
2025 437
2026 61
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the average revenue for Automobile Dealers?
$715.6B in total annual receipts across all Automobile Dealers businesses. Average per business: $15.9B.
How profitable is Automobile Dealers?
1.5% net profit margin, significantly below average, typical of high-volume, low-margin sectors.
How many businesses are in Automobile Dealers?
47,057 business establishments. Together they employ 1,293,388 workers.
What is the average payroll per employee in Automobile Dealers?
$76,358/yr average annual pay per employee. Businesses average 27.5 employees per establishment.
Which states have the most Automobile Dealers employment?
California leads with 124,618 workers. Texas (124,436) and Florida (99,767) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does Automobile Dealers receive?
Automobile Dealers businesses received 2,096 SBA loans totaling $1.8 billion between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $842K. These loans supported 19,288 jobs at origination. Most lending (74%) 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: Automobile Dealers reports a higher net margin than 9% of the 126 IRS-tracked industries at the same NAICS detail level. Its Census employment total exceeds 91% 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 Automobile Dealers
- Net margin: 1.5% vs sector. Browse Retail Trade
- 47,057 establishments, 1,293,388 workers. Payroll benchmarks
- 2,096 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 4411 · 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.