Employment
1,185,495
Total employees (Census CBP)
Transportation and Warehousing ·NAICS 4841
NAICS 4841 · IRS SOI 2023 · Census CBP
General Freight Trucking - Industry Benchmarks
$60,514/yr average annual pay, with 13,307 SBA loans on record for NAICS 4841.
- 6.0%
- Transportation and Warehousing sector margin
- 1.2M
- Workers employed
- $60,514/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $3.6B
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Data updated July 2026
The verdict · NAICS 4841
California leads General Freight Trucking activity nationally. IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at this NAICS level, but the broader Transportation and Warehousing sector runs a 6.0% net margin.
- 6.0%
- Transportation and Warehousing sector margin (IRS SOI)
- 1.2M
- Workers employed (Census CBP)
- $60,514/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $3.6B
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Benchmarking Insights for General Freight Trucking
General Freight Trucking sits inside Transportation and Warehousing, a sector that runs a 6.0% net margin overall.
117,181 establishments employ 1,185,495 workers (10.1/location) at $60,514/yr average annual pay. California leads employment, followed by Texas and Illinois.
Avg Payroll / Employee
$60,514/yr
Annual compensation
Establishments
117,181
Business locations
Release-over-release change
What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023
Employment decreased by 38,667; establishment count decreased by 2,767. 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)
- $71.7B
- Avg Employees per Establishment
- 10.1
Sub-Industries
| Industry | Profit Margin |
|---|---|
| General Freight Trucking, Local NAICS 48411 | N/A |
| General Freight Trucking, Long-Distance NAICS 48412 | N/A |
Top States by Employment
| State | Employment |
|---|---|
| California | 112,618 |
| Texas | 110,732 |
| Illinois | 68,362 |
| Tennessee | 55,158 |
| Ohio | 53,611 |
| Pennsylvania | 51,649 |
| Georgia | 50,250 |
| Florida | 47,098 |
| Indiana | 41,417 |
| Wisconsin | 40,127 |
Showing top 10 of 51 states
SBA Lending Activity
SBA FY2020–2026SBA Loans Approved
13,307
Total Loan Volume
$3.6B
Avg Loan Size
$271K
Jobs Supported
77,210
Program Breakdown
7(a) 12,848 (97%)
504 459 (3%)
Top SBA Lender
The Huntington National Bank
4,240 loans in this industry
New Business Share
27.1% of borrowers were new/startup businesses
Annual Lending Trend (7 yrs)
2020 1,852
2021 2,210
2022 2,375
2023 2,438
2024 2,239
2025 2,004
2026 189
Frequently Asked Questions
How profitable is General Freight Trucking?
IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at the NAICS 4841 level. California leads this industry nationally. The broader Transportation and Warehousing sector runs a 6.0% net margin (IRS SOI 2023).
How many businesses are in General Freight Trucking?
117,181 business establishments. Together they employ 1,185,495 workers.
What is the average payroll per employee in General Freight Trucking?
$60,514/yr average annual pay per employee. Businesses average 10.1 employees per establishment.
Which states have the most General Freight Trucking employment?
California leads with 112,618 workers. Texas (110,732) and Illinois (68,362) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does General Freight Trucking receive?
General Freight Trucking businesses received 13,307 SBA loans totaling $3.6 billion between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $271K. These loans supported 77,210 jobs at origination. Most lending (97%) 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 89% 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.
- Clothing Stores 1,190,123
- Legal Services 1,190,297
- Elementary and Secondary Schools 1,176,824
Benchmarking General Freight Trucking
- No margin data, check the parent industry. Browse Transportation and Warehousing
- 117,181 establishments, 1,185,495 workers. Payroll benchmarks
- 13,307 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 4841 · 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.