Employment
21,136
Total employees (Census CBP)
Transportation and Warehousing ·NAICS 48321
NAICS 48321 · IRS SOI (C corp) · Census CBP 2023
Inland Water Transportation - Industry Benchmarks
$91,781/yr average annual pay, with 43 SBA loans on record for NAICS 48321.
- 692
- Establishments
- 21K
- Workers employed
- $91,781/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $20M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Data updated August 2026
The verdict · NAICS 48321
Kentucky leads Inland Water Transportation activity nationally, across 692 establishments employing 21K workers. IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at this NAICS level.
- 692
- Business establishments (Census)
- 21K
- Workers employed (Census CBP)
- $91,781/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $20M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Use Inland Water Transportation's NAICS benchmark as a comparison point, not a forecast for one business.
Inland Water Transportation 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 Inland Water Transportation
Inland Water Transportation sits inside Transportation and Warehousing.
692 establishments employ 21,136 workers (30.5/location) at $91,781/yr average annual pay. Kentucky leads employment, followed by Mississippi and Illinois.
Inland Water Transportation sits in the 18th percentile for employment among 5-digit NAICS industries with reported data.
Avg Payroll / Employee
$91,781/yr
Annual compensation
Establishments
692
Business locations
Release-over-release change
What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023
Employment increased by 1,680; establishment count increased by 7. 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)
- $1.9B
- Avg Employees per Establishment
- 30.5
Sub-Industries
| Industry | Profit Margin |
|---|---|
| Inland Water Freight Transportation NAICS 483211 | N/A |
| Inland Water Passenger Transportation NAICS 483212 | N/A |
Top States by Employment
| State | Employment |
|---|---|
| Kentucky | 3,168 |
| Mississippi | 977 |
| Illinois | 655 |
| Virginia | 248 |
| Maine | 26 |
| Alaska | 23 |
| Hawaii | 7 |
| Michigan | 4 |
Showing top 10 of 29 states
SBA Lending Activity
SBA FY2020–2026SBA Loans Approved
43
Total Loan Volume
$20M
Avg Loan Size
$470K
Jobs Supported
392
Program Breakdown
7(a) 39 (91%)
504 4 (9%)
Top SBA Lender
Manufacturers and Traders Trust Company
4 loans in this industry
New Business Share
37.2% of borrowers were new/startup businesses
Annual Lending Trend (6 yrs)
2020 4
2021 5
2022 3
2023 14
2024 9
2025 8
Frequently Asked Questions
How many businesses are in Inland Water Transportation?
692 business establishments. Together they employ 21,136 workers.
What is the average payroll per employee in Inland Water Transportation?
$91,781/yr average annual pay per employee. Businesses average 30.5 employees per establishment.
Which states have the most Inland Water Transportation employment?
Kentucky leads with 3,168 workers. Mississippi (977) and Illinois (655) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does Inland Water Transportation receive?
Inland Water Transportation businesses received 43 SBA loans totaling $20 million between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $470K. These loans supported 392 jobs at origination. Most lending (91%) came through the SBA 7(a) program.
Nationwide industries with similar benchmark drivers
Two IRS/Census peer sets for Inland Water Transportation, both at NAICS level 5 and excluding this code so the neighborhoods are not self-links.
According to Census County Business Patterns 2023, Inland Water Transportation ranks #453 of 551 U.S. industries at the 5-digit NAICS level by total employment.
Similar workforce scale
Nearest peer industries by ABS(Census employment) (21,136 here).
Read with this industry: Industry employment trends · Transportation and Warehousing · 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 48321 · 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.