Employment
1,190,123
Total employees (Census CBP)
Retail Trade ·NAICS 4481
NAICS 4481 · IRS SOI 2023 · Census CBP
Clothing Stores - Industry Benchmarks
$23,729/yr average annual pay, with 1,058 SBA loans on record for NAICS 4481.
- 4.2%
- Retail Trade sector margin
- 1.2M
- Workers employed
- $23,729/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $325M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Data updated July 2026
The verdict · NAICS 4481
California leads Clothing 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)
- 1.2M
- Workers employed (Census CBP)
- $23,729/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $325M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Benchmarking Insights for Clothing Stores
Clothing Stores sits inside Retail Trade, a sector that runs a 4.2% net margin overall.
83,287 establishments employ 1,190,123 workers (14.3/location) at $23,729/yr average annual pay. California leads employment, followed by Texas and Florida.
Avg Payroll / Employee
$23,729/yr
Annual compensation
Establishments
83,287
Business locations
Release-over-release change
What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023
Employment increased by 50,982; establishment count increased by 786. 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)
- $28.2B
- Avg Employees per Establishment
- 14.3
Sub-Industries
| Industry | Profit Margin |
|---|---|
| Children's and Infants' Clothing Stores NAICS 44813 | N/A |
| Clothing Accessories Stores NAICS 44815 | N/A |
| Family Clothing Stores NAICS 44814 | N/A |
| Men's Clothing Stores NAICS 44811 | N/A |
| Other Clothing Stores NAICS 44819 | N/A |
| Women's Clothing Stores NAICS 44812 | N/A |
Top States by Employment
| State | Employment |
|---|---|
| California | 171,094 |
| Texas | 113,173 |
| Florida | 105,762 |
| New York | 86,870 |
| Illinois | 45,008 |
| New Jersey | 41,891 |
| Pennsylvania | 38,492 |
| Georgia | 36,655 |
| Ohio | 33,622 |
| North Carolina | 32,006 |
Showing top 10 of 51 states
SBA Lending Activity
SBA FY2020–2026SBA Loans Approved
1,058
Total Loan Volume
$325M
Avg Loan Size
$308K
Jobs Supported
5,705
Program Breakdown
7(a) 957 (90%)
504 101 (10%)
Top SBA Lender
TD Bank, National Association
96 loans in this industry
New Business Share
29.8% of borrowers were new/startup businesses
Annual Lending Trend (7 yrs)
2020 315
2021 381
2022 224
2023 92
2024 32
2025 13
2026 1
Frequently Asked Questions
How profitable is Clothing Stores?
IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at the NAICS 4481 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 Clothing Stores?
83,287 business establishments. Together they employ 1,190,123 workers.
What is the average payroll per employee in Clothing Stores?
$23,729/yr average annual pay per employee. Businesses average 14.3 employees per establishment.
Which states have the most Clothing Stores employment?
California leads with 171,094 workers. Texas (113,173) and Florida (105,762) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does Clothing Stores receive?
Clothing Stores businesses received 1,058 SBA loans totaling $325 million between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $308K. These loans supported 5,705 jobs at origination. Most lending (90%) 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 90% 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 workforce scale
Same NAICS detail level, ordered by the smallest difference in reported Census employment.
- Legal Services 1,190,297
- General Freight Trucking 1,185,495
- Elementary and Secondary Schools 1,176,824
Benchmarking Clothing Stores
- No margin data, check the parent industry. Browse Retail Trade
- 83,287 establishments, 1,190,123 workers. Payroll benchmarks
- 1,058 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 4481 · 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.