NAICS 4451 · IRS SOI 2013 (C corp) · Census CBP 2023

Grocery Stores - Industry Benchmarks

$29,496/yr average annual pay, with 4,963 SBA loans on record for NAICS 4451.

2.7%
Net margin: 3.0M
Workers employed: $29,496/yr
Avg payroll / employee: $3.2B
SBA lending, FY20–26

Data updated August 2026

The verdict · NAICS 4451

Grocery Stores runs a 2.7% pre-tax net margin - significantly below average, typical of high-volume, low-margin sectors - across 100K establishments employing 3.0M workers.

2.7%
Pre-tax net margin (IRS SOI): 3.0M
Workers employed (Census CBP): $29,496/yr
Avg payroll / employee: $3.2B
SBA lending, FY20–26

Use Grocery Stores's NAICS benchmark as a comparison point, not a forecast for one business.

Grocery Stores is reported here with financial measures from IRS Statistics of Income and workforce measures from Census County Business Patterns. The page keeps those source systems distinct, shows unavailable fields rather than estimating them, and links the underlying industry context so readers can compare the same NAICS activity before interpreting a margin or payroll figure.

Source: IRS SOI 2013 (C corporation headline) and Census County Business Patterns 2023

Benchmarking Insights for Grocery Stores

Grocery Stores sits inside Retail Trade at a 2.7% net margin (significantly below average, typical of high-volume, low-margin sectors), $657.9B in aggregate receipts across 76,407 returns, averaging $8.6B 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.

Grocery Stores sits in the 98th percentile for employment and the 23rd percentile for net margin among 4-digit NAICS industries with reported data.

Profit Margin

2.7%

Net income ÷ total receipts (IRS SOI)

Total Receipts

$657.9B

Annual revenue (IRS SOI)

Net Income

$17.5B

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.

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Where each dollar of Grocery Stores revenue goes

Receipts decomposition, IRS Statistics of Income 2023 aggregate for Grocery Stores

Workforce scale

Establishment size, Grocery Stores (Census SUSB)

Grocery Stores margin vs national reference points

Grocery Stores net margin 8.9%

Cross-industry median (5%)

p25/median/p75 = 3%/5%/7%

Business Structure Breakdown

Per-entity IRS SOI tables at their own vintages, shares only when every row shares one year (never mix 2013/2017/2022 populations).

C Corporation SOI 2013

76,407 returns

Margin: 2.7% · Receipts: $657.9B

Sole Proprietorship SOI 2022

364,472 returns

Margin: 4.5% · Receipts: $35.3B

Financial Detail

Total Tax Returns Filed: 76,407
Avg Receipts per Business: $8.6B
Annual Payroll (Total): $87.7B
Avg Employees per Establishment: 29.8

Sub-Industries

Industry	Profit Margin	Employment	Avg Payroll/Emp
Convenience Stores NAICS 44512	N/A	166,083	$24,073/yr
Supermarkets and Other Grocery (except Convenience) Stores NAICS 44511	N/A	2,808,118	$29,817/yr

Top States by Employment

State	Employment	Establishments	Annual Payroll	Avg Payroll/Emp
California	332,219	11,156	$12.4B	$37,424/yr
Texas	262,844	7,704	$7.9B	$29,907/yr
New York	191,013	12,584	$5.8B	$30,112/yr
Pennsylvania	132,025	4,058	$3.2B	$24,537/yr
North Carolina	123,549	2,916	$3.1B	$25,270/yr
Massachusetts	92,290	3,098	$2.7B	$29,317/yr
Ohio	90,623	3,420	N/A	N/A
New Jersey	87,775	3,872	$2.9B	$32,668/yr
Virginia	86,092	2,921	$2.5B	$28,462/yr
Michigan	60,920	2,527	$1.7B	$27,784/yr

Showing top 10 of 51 states

SBA Lending Activity

SBA FY2020–2026

SBA 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

View SBA lending rankings →

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the average revenue for Grocery Stores?

$657.9B in total annual receipts across all Grocery Stores businesses. Average per business: $8.6B.

How profitable is Grocery Stores?

2.7% 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.

Nationwide industries with similar benchmark drivers

Two IRS/Census peer sets for Grocery Stores, both at NAICS level 4 and excluding this code so the neighborhoods are not self-links.

According to Census County Business Patterns 2023, Grocery Stores ranks #5 of 259 U.S. industries at the 4-digit NAICS level by total employment. According to IRS SOI 2013 IRS Statistics of Income, its reported pre-tax net margin ranks #97 of 126 at that same detail level.

Similar reported net margin

Nearest peer industries by ABS(IRS pre-tax margin) (2.7% here).

Beer, Wine, and Distilled Alcoholic Beverage Merchant Wholesalers 2.7% Animal Slaughtering and Processing 2.5% Lawn and Garden Equipment and Supplies Stores 2.4%

Similar workforce scale

Nearest peer industries by ABS(Census employment) (2,974,201 here).

Offices of Physicians 2,771,935 Building Equipment Contractors 2,381,266 Individual and Family Services 2,234,072

Read with this industry: Understanding profit margins by industry · Retail Trade · 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 · CBP 2023 · IRS SOI 2013

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 Accessed 2026-07-06

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.