Profit Margin
6.0%
Net income ÷ total receipts (IRS SOI)
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.
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 FY2020–2026SBA 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.
How this ranks: Building Material and Garden Equipment and Supplies Dealers reports a higher net margin than 61% of the 79 IRS-tracked industries at the same NAICS detail level. 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.
Benchmarking Building Material and Garden Equipment and Supplies Dealers
- Net margin: 6.0% vs sector. Browse Retail Trade
- 72,618 establishments, N/A workers. Payroll benchmarks
- 2,970 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 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.
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.