Profit Margin
2.8%
Net income ÷ total receipts (IRS SOI)
Retail Trade ·NAICS 4451
NAICS 4451 · IRS SOI 2023 · Census CBP
Grocery Stores - Industry Benchmarks
$29,496/yr average annual pay, with 4,963 SBA loans on record for NAICS 4451.
- 2.8%
- Net margin
- 3.0M
- Workers employed
- $29,496/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $3.2B
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Data updated July 2026
The verdict · NAICS 4451
Grocery Stores runs a 2.8% pre-tax net margin - significantly below average, typical of high-volume, low-margin sectors - across 100K establishments employing 3.0M workers.
- 2.8%
- Pre-tax net margin (IRS SOI)
- 3.0M
- Workers employed (Census CBP)
- $29,496/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $3.2B
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Benchmarking Insights for Grocery Stores
Grocery Stores sits inside Retail Trade at a 2.8% net margin (significantly below average, typical of high-volume, low-margin sectors), $693.2B in aggregate receipts across 440,879 returns, averaging $1.6B per establishment.
99,939 establishments employ 2,974,201 workers (29.8/location) at $29,496/yr average annual pay. California leads employment, followed by Texas and New York.
Total Receipts
$693.2B
Annual revenue (IRS SOI)
Net Income
$19.1B
Pre-tax net income
Employment
2,974,201
Total employees (Census CBP)
Avg Payroll / Employee
$29,496/yr
Annual compensation
Establishments
99,939
Business locations
Release-over-release change
What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023
Employment increased by 4,213; establishment count increased by 866. This comparison uses two published national Census County Business Patterns releases; suppressed fields are omitted rather than estimated.
Where each dollar of Grocery Stores revenue goes
Workforce scale
Grocery Stores margin vs national reference points
Grocery Stores net margin 9.2%
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
76,407 returns 17%
Margin: 2.7% · Receipts: $657.9B
Sole Proprietorship
364,472 returns 83%
Margin: 4.5% · Receipts: $35.3B
Financial Detail
- Total Tax Returns Filed
- 440,879
- Avg Receipts per Business
- $1.6B
- Annual Payroll (Total)
- $87.7B
- Avg Employees per Establishment
- 29.8
Sub-Industries
| Industry | Profit Margin |
|---|---|
| Convenience Stores NAICS 44512 | N/A |
| Supermarkets and Other Grocery (except Convenience) Stores NAICS 44511 | N/A |
Top States by Employment
| State | Employment |
|---|---|
| California | 332,219 |
| Texas | 262,844 |
| New York | 191,013 |
| Pennsylvania | 132,025 |
| North Carolina | 123,549 |
| Massachusetts | 92,290 |
| Ohio | 90,623 |
| New Jersey | 87,775 |
| Virginia | 86,092 |
| Michigan | 60,920 |
Showing top 10 of 51 states
SBA Lending Activity
SBA FY2020–2026SBA Loans Approved
4,963
Total Loan Volume
$3.2B
Avg Loan Size
$639K
Jobs Supported
50,142
Program Breakdown
7(a) 4,515 (91%)
504 448 (9%)
Top SBA Lender
The Huntington National Bank
310 loans in this industry
New Business Share
34.9% of borrowers were new/startup businesses
Annual Lending Trend (7 yrs)
2020 612
2021 828
2022 650
2023 827
2024 877
2025 1,003
2026 166
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the average revenue for Grocery Stores?
$693.2B in total annual receipts across all Grocery Stores businesses. Average per business: $1.6B.
How profitable is Grocery Stores?
2.8% net profit margin, significantly below average, typical of high-volume, low-margin sectors.
How many businesses are in Grocery Stores?
99,939 business establishments. Together they employ 2,974,201 workers.
What is the average payroll per employee in Grocery Stores?
$29,496/yr average annual pay per employee. Businesses average 29.8 employees per establishment.
Which states have the most Grocery Stores employment?
California leads with 332,219 workers. Texas (262,844) and New York (191,013) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does Grocery Stores receive?
Grocery Stores businesses received 4,963 SBA loans totaling $3.2 billion between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $639K. These loans supported 50,142 jobs at origination. Most lending (91%) 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: Grocery Stores reports a higher net margin than 25% of the 126 IRS-tracked industries at the same NAICS detail level. Its Census employment total exceeds 98% 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.
- Offices of Physicians 2,771,935
- Building Equipment Contractors 2,381,266
- Individual and Family Services 2,234,072
Benchmarking Grocery Stores
- Net margin: 2.8% vs sector. Browse Retail Trade
- 99,939 establishments, 2,974,201 workers. Payroll benchmarks
- 4,963 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 4451 · 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.