Employment
153,041
Total employees (Census CBP)
Retail Trade ·NAICS 444130
NAICS 444130 · IRS SOI 2023 · Census CBP
Hardware Stores - Industry Benchmarks
$34,174/yr average annual pay, with 440 SBA loans on record for NAICS 444130.
- 4.2%
- Retail Trade sector margin
- 153K
- Workers employed
- $34,174/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $304M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Data updated July 2026
The verdict · NAICS 444130
Texas leads Hardware Stores activity nationally. IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at this NAICS level, but the broader Retail Trade sector runs a 4.2% net margin.
- 4.2%
- Retail Trade sector margin (IRS SOI)
- 153K
- Workers employed (Census CBP)
- $34,174/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $304M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Benchmarking Insights for Hardware Stores
Hardware Stores sits inside Retail Trade, a sector that runs a 4.2% net margin overall.
15,694 establishments employ 153,041 workers (9.8/location) at $34,174/yr average annual pay. Texas leads employment, followed by Florida and New York.
Avg Payroll / Employee
$34,174/yr
Annual compensation
Establishments
15,694
Business locations
Release-over-release change
What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023
Employment increased by 5,516; establishment count increased by 675. 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)
- $5.2B
- Avg Employees per Establishment
- 9.8
Top States by Employment
| State | Employment |
|---|---|
| Texas | 9,783 |
| Florida | 9,386 |
| New York | 7,136 |
| Wisconsin | 5,705 |
| Illinois | 5,629 |
| Ohio | 5,536 |
| Washington | 4,467 |
| Georgia | 4,370 |
| North Carolina | 4,366 |
| Arizona | 3,452 |
Showing top 10 of 51 states
SBA Lending Activity
SBA FY2020–2026SBA Loans Approved
440
Total Loan Volume
$304M
Avg Loan Size
$690K
Jobs Supported
5,394
Program Breakdown
7(a) 380 (86%)
504 60 (14%)
Top SBA Lender
Live Oak Banking Company
29 loans in this industry
New Business Share
30.9% of borrowers were new/startup businesses
Annual Lending Trend (6 yrs)
2020 150
2021 217
2022 56
2023 7
2024 9
2025 1
Frequently Asked Questions
How profitable is Hardware Stores?
IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at the NAICS 444130 level. Texas leads this industry nationally. The broader Retail Trade sector runs a 4.2% net margin (IRS SOI 2023).
How many businesses are in Hardware Stores?
15,694 business establishments. Together they employ 153,041 workers.
What is the average payroll per employee in Hardware Stores?
$34,174/yr average annual pay per employee. Businesses average 9.8 employees per establishment.
Which states have the most Hardware Stores employment?
Texas leads with 9,783 workers. Florida (9,386) and New York (7,136) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does Hardware Stores receive?
Hardware Stores businesses received 440 SBA loans totaling $304 million between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $690K. These loans supported 5,394 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: Its Census employment total exceeds 81% of that same 801-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 Hardware Stores
- No margin data, check the parent industry. Browse Retail Trade
- 15,694 establishments, 153,041 workers. Payroll benchmarks
- 440 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 444130 · 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.