Profit Margin
5.3%
Net income ÷ total receipts (IRS SOI)
Transportation and Warehousing ·NAICS 484
NAICS 484 · IRS SOI 2023 · Census CBP
Truck Transportation - Industry Benchmarks
$61,111/yr average annual pay, with 15,825 SBA loans on record for NAICS 484.
- 5.3%
- Net margin
- 1.7M
- Workers employed
- $61,111/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $4.5B
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Data updated July 2026
The verdict · NAICS 484
Truck Transportation runs a 5.3% pre-tax net margin - below the national median - across 170K establishments employing 1.7M workers.
- 5.3%
- Pre-tax net margin (IRS SOI)
- 1.7M
- Workers employed (Census CBP)
- $61,111/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $4.5B
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Benchmarking Insights for Truck Transportation
Truck Transportation sits inside Transportation and Warehousing at a 5.3% net margin (below the national median), $383.0B in aggregate receipts across 976,300 returns, averaging $392.3M per establishment.
170,286 establishments employ 1,693,228 workers (9.9/location) at $61,111/yr average annual pay. Texas leads employment, followed by California and Illinois.
Total Receipts
$383.0B
Annual revenue (IRS SOI)
Net Income
$20.3B
Pre-tax net income
Employment
1,693,228
Total employees (Census CBP)
Avg Payroll / Employee
$61,111/yr
Annual compensation
Establishments
170,286
Business locations
Release-over-release change
What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023
Employment decreased by 38,450; establishment count decreased by 4,270. This comparison uses two published national Census County Business Patterns releases; suppressed fields are omitted rather than estimated.
Where each dollar of Truck Transportation revenue goes
Workforce scale
Truck Transportation margin vs national reference points
Truck Transportation net margin 17.7%
Cross-industry median (5%)
p25/median/p75 = 3%/5%/8%
Business Structure Breakdown
How businesses in this industry are legally structured (IRS SOI)
C Corporation
125,617 returns 13%
Margin: 2.7% · Receipts: $260.6B
Sole Proprietorship
850,683 returns 87%
Margin: 10.8% · Receipts: $122.3B
Financial Detail
- Total Tax Returns Filed
- 976,300
- Avg Receipts per Business
- $392.3M
- Annual Payroll (Total)
- $103.5B
- Avg Employees per Establishment
- 9.9
Sub-Industries
| Industry | Profit Margin |
|---|---|
| General Freight Trucking NAICS 4841 | N/A |
| Specialized Freight Trucking NAICS 4842 | N/A |
Top States by Employment
| State | Employment |
|---|---|
| Texas | 166,894 |
| California | 159,689 |
| Illinois | 86,658 |
| Ohio | 73,687 |
| Pennsylvania | 71,958 |
| Florida | 68,707 |
| Georgia | 66,826 |
| Tennessee | 65,211 |
| Indiana | 56,379 |
| Wisconsin | 52,779 |
Showing top 10 of 51 states
SBA Lending Activity
SBA FY2020–2026SBA Loans Approved
15,825
Total Loan Volume
$4.5B
Avg Loan Size
$282K
Jobs Supported
98,622
Program Breakdown
7(a) 15,217 (96%)
504 608 (4%)
Top SBA Lender
The Huntington National Bank
4,662 loans in this industry
New Business Share
28.2% of borrowers were new/startup businesses
Annual Lending Trend (7 yrs)
2020 2,249
2021 2,614
2022 2,779
2023 2,836
2024 2,619
2025 2,485
2026 243
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the average revenue for Truck Transportation?
$383.0B in total annual receipts across all Truck Transportation businesses. Average per business: $392.3M.
How profitable is Truck Transportation?
5.3% net profit margin, below the national median.
How many businesses are in Truck Transportation?
170,286 business establishments. Together they employ 1,693,228 workers.
What is the average payroll per employee in Truck Transportation?
$61,111/yr average annual pay per employee. Businesses average 9.9 employees per establishment.
Which states have the most Truck Transportation employment?
Texas leads with 166,894 workers. California (159,689) and Illinois (86,658) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does Truck Transportation receive?
Truck Transportation businesses received 15,825 SBA loans totaling $4.5 billion between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $282K. These loans supported 98,622 jobs at origination. Most lending (96%) 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: Truck Transportation reports a higher net margin than 54% of the 79 IRS-tracked industries at the same NAICS detail level. Its Census employment total exceeds 71% of that same 77-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 reported net margins
Same NAICS detail level, ordered by the smallest difference in reported IRS pre-tax margin.
Closest workforce scale
Same NAICS detail level, ordered by the smallest difference in reported Census employment.
- Transportation Equipment Manufacturing 1,682,910
- Food Manufacturing 1,707,316
- Construction of Buildings 1,621,439
Benchmarking Truck Transportation
- Net margin: 5.3% vs sector. Browse Transportation and Warehousing
- 170,286 establishments, 1,693,228 workers. Payroll benchmarks
- 15,825 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 484 · 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.