Retail Trade ·NAICS 445310

NAICS 445310 · IRS SOI 2023 · Census CBP

Beer, Wine, and Liquor Stores - Industry Benchmarks

$28,143/yr average annual pay, with 1,719 SBA loans on record for NAICS 445310.

4.2%
Retail Trade sector margin
194K
Workers employed
$28,143/yr
Avg payroll / employee
$1.4B
SBA lending, FY20–26

Data updated July 2026

The verdict · NAICS 445310

California leads Beer, Wine, and Liquor 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)
194K
Workers employed (Census CBP)
$28,143/yr
Avg payroll / employee
$1.4B
SBA lending, FY20–26

Benchmarking Insights for Beer, Wine, and Liquor Stores

Beer, Wine, and Liquor Stores sits inside Retail Trade, a sector that runs a 4.2% net margin overall.

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.

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.

Workforce scale

Financial Detail

Annual Payroll (Total)
$5.4B
Avg Employees per Establishment
5.3

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 FY2020–2026

SBA 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 profitable is Beer, Wine, and Liquor Stores?
IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at the NAICS 445310 level. California leads this industry nationally. The broader Retail Trade sector runs a 4.2% net margin (IRS SOI 2023).
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.

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 85% 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 Beer, Wine, and Liquor Stores

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 445310 · 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.

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.