Retail Trade ·NAICS 44821

NAICS 44821 · IRS SOI (C corp) · Census CBP 2023

Shoe Stores - Industry Benchmarks

$23,375/yr average annual pay, with 108 SBA loans on record for NAICS 44821.

18K
Establishments
203K
Workers employed
$23,375/yr
Avg payroll / employee
$36M
SBA lending, FY20–26

Data updated August 2026

The verdict · NAICS 44821

California leads Shoe Stores activity nationally, across 18K establishments employing 203K workers. IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at this NAICS level.

18K
Business establishments (Census)
203K
Workers employed (Census CBP)
$23,375/yr
Avg payroll / employee
$36M
SBA lending, FY20–26

Use Shoe Stores's NAICS benchmark as a comparison point, not a forecast for one business.

Shoe 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 Shoe Stores

Shoe Stores sits inside Retail Trade.

18,177 establishments employ 202,988 workers (11.2/location) at $23,375/yr average annual pay. California leads employment, followed by Texas and Florida.

Employment

202,988

Total employees (Census CBP)

Avg Payroll / Employee

$23,375/yr

Annual compensation

Establishments

18,177

Business locations

Release-over-release change

What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023

Employment increased by 584; establishment count decreased by 123. This comparison uses two published national Census County Business Patterns releases; suppressed fields are omitted rather than estimated.

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Workforce scale

Financial Detail

Annual Payroll (Total)
$4.7B
Avg Employees per Establishment
11.2

Sub-Industries

Industry Profit Margin
Shoe Stores

NAICS 448210

N/A

Top States by Employment

State Employment
California 28,097
Texas 21,124
Florida 15,791
New York 14,364
Illinois 7,661
North Carolina 6,860
Pennsylvania 6,730
New Jersey 6,388
Ohio 5,871
Virginia 5,320

Showing top 10 of 51 states

SBA Lending Activity

SBA FY2020–2026

SBA Loans Approved

108

Total Loan Volume

$36M

Avg Loan Size

$330K

Jobs Supported

664

Program Breakdown

7(a) 102 (94%)
504 6 (6%)

Top SBA Lender

The Huntington National Bank

14 loans in this industry

New Business Share

26.9% of borrowers were new/startup businesses

Annual Lending Trend (5 yrs)

2020
34
2021
42
2022
23
2023
5
2024
4

Frequently Asked Questions

How many businesses are in Shoe Stores?
18,177 business establishments. Together they employ 202,988 workers.
What is the average payroll per employee in Shoe Stores?
$23,375/yr average annual pay per employee. Businesses average 11.2 employees per establishment.
Which states have the most Shoe Stores employment?
California leads with 28,097 workers. Texas (21,124) and Florida (15,791) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does Shoe Stores receive?
Shoe Stores businesses received 108 SBA loans totaling $36 million between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $330K. These loans supported 664 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 78% of that same 551-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 Shoe 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 44821 · 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.

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.