Employment
193,533
Total employees (Census CBP)
Retail Trade ·NAICS 44531
NAICS 44531 · IRS SOI (C corp) · Census CBP 2023
Beer, Wine, and Liquor Stores - Industry Benchmarks
$28,143/yr average annual pay, with 1,719 SBA loans on record for NAICS 44531.
- 36K
- Establishments
- 194K
- Workers employed
- $28,143/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $1.4B
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Data updated August 2026
The verdict · NAICS 44531
California leads Beer, Wine, and Liquor Stores activity nationally, across 36K establishments employing 194K workers. IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at this NAICS level.
- 36K
- Business establishments (Census)
- 194K
- Workers employed (Census CBP)
- $28,143/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $1.4B
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Use Beer, Wine, and Liquor Stores's NAICS benchmark as a comparison point, not a forecast for one business.
Beer, Wine, and Liquor 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 (C corporation headline) and Census County Business Patterns 2023
Benchmarking Insights for Beer, Wine, and Liquor Stores
Beer, Wine, and Liquor Stores sits inside Retail Trade.
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.
Beer, Wine, and Liquor Stores sits in the 77th percentile for employment among 5-digit NAICS industries with reported data.
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.
Subscribe to this industry's release updates (RSS)Workforce scale
Financial Detail
- Annual Payroll (Total)
- $5.4B
- Avg Employees per Establishment
- 5.3
Sub-Industries
| Industry | Profit Margin |
|---|---|
| Beer, Wine, and Liquor Stores NAICS 445310 | 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
1,719
Total Loan Volume
$1.4B
Avg Loan Size
$789K
Jobs Supported
9,406
Program Breakdown
7(a) 1,624 (94%)
504 95 (6%)
Top SBA Lender
Hanmi Bank
174 loans in this industry
New Business Share
25.7% of borrowers were new/startup businesses
Annual Lending Trend (7 yrs)
2020 563
2021 845
2022 237
2023 47
2024 18
2025 8
2026 1
Frequently Asked Questions
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 1,719 SBA loans totaling $1.4 billion between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $789K. These loans supported 9,406 jobs at origination. Most lending (94%) came through the SBA 7(a) program.
Nationwide industries with similar benchmark drivers
Two IRS/Census peer sets for Beer, Wine, and Liquor Stores, both at NAICS level 5 and excluding this code so the neighborhoods are not self-links.
According to Census County Business Patterns 2023, Beer, Wine, and Liquor Stores ranks #125 of 551 U.S. industries at the 5-digit NAICS level by total employment.
Similar workforce scale
Nearest peer industries by ABS(Census employment) (193,533 here).
Read with this industry: Industry employment trends · 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 44531 · CBP 2023 · IRS SOI
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.