Employment
691,152
Total employees (Census CBP)
Retail Trade ·NAICS 446110
NAICS 446110 · IRS SOI (C corp) · Census CBP 2023
Pharmacies and Drug Stores - Industry Benchmarks
$44,477/yr average annual pay, with 791 SBA loans on record for NAICS 446110.
- 42K
- Establishments
- 691K
- Workers employed
- $44,477/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $592M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Data updated August 2026
The verdict · NAICS 446110
California leads Pharmacies and Drug Stores activity nationally, across 42K establishments employing 691K workers. IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at this NAICS level.
- 42K
- Business establishments (Census)
- 691K
- Workers employed (Census CBP)
- $44,477/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $592M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Use Pharmacies and Drug Stores's NAICS benchmark as a comparison point, not a forecast for one business.
Pharmacies and Drug 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 Pharmacies and Drug Stores
Pharmacies and Drug Stores sits inside Retail Trade.
41,792 establishments employ 691,152 workers (16.5/location) at $44,477/yr average annual pay. California leads employment, followed by New York and Texas.
Pharmacies and Drug Stores sits in the 95th percentile for employment among 6-digit NAICS industries with reported data.
Avg Payroll / Employee
$44,477/yr
Annual compensation
Establishments
41,792
Business locations
Release-over-release change
What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023
Employment increased by 18,068; establishment count decreased by 915. 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)
- $30.7B
- Avg Employees per Establishment
- 16.5
Top States by Employment
| State | Employment |
|---|---|
| California | 62,237 |
| New York | 55,087 |
| Texas | 52,381 |
| Florida | 50,697 |
| New Jersey | 26,348 |
| North Carolina | 25,025 |
| Michigan | 21,734 |
| Georgia | 20,501 |
| Massachusetts | 17,946 |
| Tennessee | 16,629 |
Showing top 10 of 51 states
SBA Lending Activity
SBA FY2020–2026SBA Loans Approved
791
Total Loan Volume
$592M
Avg Loan Size
$748K
Jobs Supported
7,376
Program Breakdown
7(a) 737 (93%)
504 54 (7%)
Top SBA Lender
Live Oak Banking Company
97 loans in this industry
New Business Share
31.5% of borrowers were new/startup businesses
Annual Lending Trend (6 yrs)
2020 307
2021 305
2022 120
2023 35
2024 18
2025 6
Frequently Asked Questions
How many businesses are in Pharmacies and Drug Stores?
41,792 business establishments. Together they employ 691,152 workers.
What is the average payroll per employee in Pharmacies and Drug Stores?
$44,477/yr average annual pay per employee. Businesses average 16.5 employees per establishment.
Which states have the most Pharmacies and Drug Stores employment?
California leads with 62,237 workers. New York (55,087) and Texas (52,381) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does Pharmacies and Drug Stores receive?
Pharmacies and Drug Stores businesses received 791 SBA loans totaling $592 million between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $748K. These loans supported 7,376 jobs at origination. Most lending (93%) came through the SBA 7(a) program.
Nationwide industries with similar benchmark drivers
Two IRS/Census peer sets for Pharmacies and Drug Stores, both at NAICS level 6 and excluding this code so the neighborhoods are not self-links.
According to Census County Business Patterns 2023, Pharmacies and Drug Stores ranks #37 of 801 U.S. industries at the 6-digit NAICS level by total employment.
Similar workforce scale
Nearest peer industries by ABS(Census employment) (691,152 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 446110 · 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.