Profit Margin
1.7%
Net income ÷ total receipts (IRS SOI)
Retail Trade ·NAICS 4453
NAICS 4453 · IRS SOI 2023 · Census CBP
Beer, Wine, and Liquor Stores - Industry Benchmarks
$28,143/yr average annual pay, with 4,180 SBA loans on record for NAICS 4453.
- 1.7%
- Net margin
- 194K
- Workers employed
- $28,143/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $3.4B
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Data updated July 2026
The verdict · NAICS 4453
Beer, Wine, and Liquor Stores runs a 1.7% pre-tax net margin - significantly below average, typical of high-volume, low-margin sectors - across 36K establishments employing 194K workers.
- 1.7%
- Pre-tax net margin (IRS SOI)
- 194K
- Workers employed (Census CBP)
- $28,143/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $3.4B
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Benchmarking Insights for Beer, Wine, and Liquor Stores
Beer, Wine, and Liquor Stores sits inside Retail Trade at a 1.7% net margin (significantly below average, typical of high-volume, low-margin sectors), $30.4B in aggregate receipts across 21,081 returns, averaging $1.4B per establishment.
36,433 establishments employ 193,533 workers (5.3/location) at $28,143/yr average annual pay. California leads employment, followed by New York and Texas.
Total Receipts
$30.4B
Annual revenue (IRS SOI)
Net Income
$508.3M
Pre-tax net income
Employment
193,533
Total employees (Census CBP)
Avg Payroll / Employee
$28,143/yr
Annual compensation
Establishments
36,433
Business locations
Release-over-release change
What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023
Employment decreased by 434; establishment count increased by 260. This comparison uses two published national Census County Business Patterns releases; suppressed fields are omitted rather than estimated.
Where each dollar of Beer, Wine, and Liquor Stores revenue goes
Workforce scale
Beer, Wine, and Liquor Stores margin vs national reference points
Beer, Wine, and Liquor Stores net margin 5.6%
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
21,081 returns 100%
Margin: 1.7% · Receipts: $30.4B
Financial Detail
- Total Tax Returns Filed
- 21,081
- Avg Receipts per Business
- $1.4B
- Annual Payroll (Total)
- $5.4B
- Avg Employees per Establishment
- 5.3
Sub-Industries
| Industry | Profit Margin |
|---|---|
| Beer, Wine, and Liquor Stores NAICS 44531 | N/A |
Top States by Employment
| State | Employment |
|---|---|
| California | 18,838 |
| New York | 14,440 |
| Texas | 12,243 |
| Pennsylvania | 11,535 |
| New Jersey | 11,395 |
| Florida | 9,534 |
| Massachusetts | 8,546 |
| Minnesota | 7,657 |
| Colorado | 7,186 |
| Michigan | 6,252 |
Showing top 10 of 51 states
SBA Lending Activity
SBA FY2020–2026SBA Loans Approved
4,180
Total Loan Volume
$3.4B
Avg Loan Size
$806K
Jobs Supported
22,461
Program Breakdown
7(a) 3,962 (95%)
504 218 (5%)
Top SBA Lender
Hanmi Bank
335 loans in this industry
New Business Share
30.4% of borrowers were new/startup businesses
Annual Lending Trend (7 yrs)
2020 564
2021 846
2022 573
2023 656
2024 671
2025 783
2026 87
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the average revenue for Beer, Wine, and Liquor Stores?
$30.4B in total annual receipts across all Beer, Wine, and Liquor Stores businesses. Average per business: $1.4B.
How profitable is Beer, Wine, and Liquor Stores?
1.7% net profit margin, significantly below average, typical of high-volume, low-margin sectors.
How many businesses are in Beer, Wine, and Liquor Stores?
36,433 business establishments. Together they employ 193,533 workers.
What is the average payroll per employee in Beer, Wine, and Liquor Stores?
$28,143/yr average annual pay per employee. Businesses average 5.3 employees per establishment.
Which states have the most Beer, Wine, and Liquor Stores employment?
California leads with 18,838 workers. New York (14,440) and Texas (12,243) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does Beer, Wine, and Liquor Stores receive?
Beer, Wine, and Liquor Stores businesses received 4,180 SBA loans totaling $3.4 billion between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $806K. These loans supported 22,461 jobs at origination. Most lending (95%) 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: Beer, Wine, and Liquor Stores reports a higher net margin than 10% of the 126 IRS-tracked industries at the same NAICS detail level. Its Census employment total exceeds 49% 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.
Benchmarking Beer, Wine, and Liquor Stores
- Net margin: 1.7% vs sector. Browse Retail Trade
- 36,433 establishments, 193,533 workers. Payroll benchmarks
- 4,180 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 4453 · 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.