Profit Margin
2.7%
Net income ÷ total receipts (IRS SOI)
Transportation and Warehousing ·NAICS 484
NAICS 484 · IRS SOI 2013 (C corp) · Census CBP 2023
Truck Transportation - Industry Benchmarks
$61,111/yr average annual pay, with 15,825 SBA loans on record for NAICS 484.
- 2.7%
- Net margin
- 1.7M
- Workers employed
- $61,111/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $4.5B
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Data updated August 2026
The verdict · NAICS 484
Truck Transportation runs a 2.7% pre-tax net margin - significantly below average, typical of high-volume, low-margin sectors - across 170K establishments employing 1.7M workers.
- 2.7%
- Pre-tax net margin (IRS SOI)
- 1.7M
- Workers employed (Census CBP)
- $61,111/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $4.5B
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Use Truck Transportation's NAICS benchmark as a comparison point, not a forecast for one business.
Truck 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 2013 (C corporation headline) and Census County Business Patterns 2023
Benchmarking Insights for Truck Transportation
Truck Transportation sits inside Transportation and Warehousing at a 2.7% net margin (significantly below average, typical of high-volume, low-margin sectors), $260.6B in aggregate receipts across 125,617 returns, averaging $2.1B 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.
Truck Transportation sits in the 71st percentile for employment and the 19th percentile for net margin among 3-digit NAICS industries with reported data.
Total Receipts
$260.6B
Annual revenue (IRS SOI)
Net Income
$7.1B
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.
Subscribe to this industry's release updates (RSS)Where each dollar of Truck Transportation revenue goes
Workforce scale
Truck Transportation margin vs national reference points
Truck Transportation net margin 9.1%
Cross-industry median (5%)
p25/median/p75 = 3%/5%/7%
Business Structure Breakdown
Per-entity IRS SOI tables at their own vintages, shares only when every row shares one year (never mix 2013/2017/2022 populations).
C Corporation SOI 2013
125,617 returns
Margin: 2.7% · Receipts: $260.6B
Sole Proprietorship SOI 2022
850,683 returns
Margin: 10.8% · Receipts: $122.3B
Financial Detail
- Total Tax Returns Filed
- 125,617
- Avg Receipts per Business
- $2.1B
- 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?
$260.6B in total annual receipts across all Truck Transportation businesses. Average per business: $2.1B.
How profitable is Truck Transportation?
2.7% net profit margin, significantly below average, typical of high-volume, low-margin sectors.
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.
Nationwide industries with similar benchmark drivers
Two IRS/Census peer sets for Truck Transportation, both at NAICS level 3 and excluding this code so the neighborhoods are not self-links.
According to Census County Business Patterns 2023, Truck Transportation ranks #22 of 77 U.S. industries at the 3-digit NAICS level by total employment. According to IRS SOI 2013 IRS Statistics of Income, its reported pre-tax net margin ranks #61 of 75 at that same detail level.
Similar reported net margin
Nearest peer industries by ABS(IRS pre-tax margin) (2.7% here).
Similar workforce scale
Nearest peer industries by ABS(Census employment) (1,693,228 here).
Read with this industry: Understanding profit margins by industry · 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 484 · CBP 2023 · IRS SOI 2013
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.