Retail Trade ·NAICS 444

NAICS 444 · IRS SOI 2023 · Census CBP

Building Material and Garden Equipment and Supplies Dealers - Industry Benchmarks

2,970 SBA loans on record, $2.2B in volume, for NAICS 444.

6.0%
Net margin
N/A
Workers employed
N/A
Avg payroll / employee
$2.2B
SBA lending, FY20–26

Data updated July 2026

The verdict · NAICS 444

Building Material and Garden Equipment and Supplies Dealers runs a 6.0% pre-tax net margin - below the national median - across 73K establishments employing N/A workers.

6.0%
Pre-tax net margin (IRS SOI)
N/A
Workers employed (Census CBP)
N/A
Avg payroll / employee
$2.2B
SBA lending, FY20–26

Benchmarking Insights for Building Material and Garden Equipment and Supplies Dealers

Building Material and Garden Equipment and Supplies Dealers sits inside Retail Trade at a 6.0% net margin (below the national median), $263.3B in aggregate receipts across 83,286 returns, averaging $3.2B per establishment.

72,618 establishments employ N/A workers. Ohio leads employment, followed by Illinois and Michigan.

Profit Margin

6.0%

Net income ÷ total receipts (IRS SOI)

Total Receipts

$263.3B

Annual revenue (IRS SOI)

Net Income

$15.7B

Pre-tax net income

Employment

N/A

Total employees (Census CBP)

Avg Payroll / Employee

N/A

Annual compensation

Establishments

72,618

Business locations

Release-over-release change

What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023

establishment count decreased by 558. This comparison uses two published national Census County Business Patterns releases; suppressed fields are omitted rather than estimated.

Where each dollar of Building Material and Garden Equipment and Supplies Dealers revenue goes

Building Material and Garden Equipment and Supplies Dealers margin vs national reference points

Building Material and Garden Equipment and Supplies Dealers net margin 19.9%
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
36,989 returns 44%

Margin: 5.9% · Receipts: $252.2B

Sole Proprietorship
46,297 returns 56%

Margin: 8.6% · Receipts: $11.1B

Financial Detail

Total Tax Returns Filed
83,286
Avg Receipts per Business
$3.2B
Annual Payroll (Total)
$55.4B

Sub-Industries

Industry Profit Margin
Building Material and Supplies Dealers

NAICS 4441

1.8%
Lawn and Garden Equipment and Supplies Stores

NAICS 4442

2.4%

Top States by Employment

State Employment
Ohio 53,689
Illinois 49,419
Michigan 46,335
Indiana 32,939
Missouri 32,112
Wisconsin 29,541
Minnesota 27,249
Kentucky 21,851
Oregon 19,755
Oklahoma 17,478

Showing top 10 of 51 states

SBA Lending Activity

SBA FY2020–2026

SBA Loans Approved

2,970

Total Loan Volume

$2.2B

Avg Loan Size

$725K

Jobs Supported

30,441

Program Breakdown

7(a) 2,507 (84%)
504 463 (16%)

Top SBA Lender

The Huntington National Bank

159 loans in this industry

New Business Share

24.2% of borrowers were new/startup businesses

Annual Lending Trend (7 yrs)

2020
402
2021
612
2022
460
2023
413
2024
468
2025
532
2026
83

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the average revenue for Building Material and Garden Equipment and Supplies Dealers?
$263.3B in total annual receipts across all Building Material and Garden Equipment and Supplies Dealers businesses. Average per business: $3.2B.
How profitable is Building Material and Garden Equipment and Supplies Dealers?
6.0% net profit margin, below the national median.
How many businesses are in Building Material and Garden Equipment and Supplies Dealers?
72,618 business establishments.
What is the average payroll per employee in Building Material and Garden Equipment and Supplies Dealers?
Average payroll data for Building Material and Garden Equipment and Supplies Dealers is not available in the current Census CBP dataset.
Which states have the most Building Material and Garden Equipment and Supplies Dealers employment?
Ohio leads with 53,689 workers. Illinois (49,419) and Michigan (46,335) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does Building Material and Garden Equipment and Supplies Dealers receive?
Building Material and Garden Equipment and Supplies Dealers businesses received 2,970 SBA loans totaling $2.2 billion between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $725K. These loans supported 30,441 jobs at origination. Most lending (84%) 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.

Closest reported net margins

Same NAICS detail level, ordered by the smallest difference in reported IRS pre-tax margin.

Benchmarking Building Material and Garden Equipment and Supplies Dealers

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 444 · 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.

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.