Employment
1,185,495
Total employees (Census CBP)
Transportation and Warehousing ·NAICS 4841
NAICS 4841 · IRS SOI (C corp) · Census CBP 2023
General Freight Trucking - Industry Benchmarks
$60,514/yr average annual pay, with 13,307 SBA loans on record for NAICS 4841.
- 117K
- Establishments
- 1.2M
- Workers employed
- $60,514/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $3.6B
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Data updated August 2026
The verdict · NAICS 4841
California leads General Freight Trucking activity nationally, across 117K establishments employing 1.2M workers. IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at this NAICS level.
- 117K
- Business establishments (Census)
- 1.2M
- Workers employed (Census CBP)
- $60,514/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $3.6B
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Use General Freight Trucking's NAICS benchmark as a comparison point, not a forecast for one business.
General Freight Trucking 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 General Freight Trucking
General Freight Trucking sits inside Transportation and Warehousing.
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.
General Freight Trucking sits in the 89th percentile for employment among 4-digit NAICS industries with reported data.
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.
Subscribe to this industry's release updates (RSS)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 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.
Nationwide industries with similar benchmark drivers
Two IRS/Census peer sets for General Freight Trucking, both at NAICS level 4 and excluding this code so the neighborhoods are not self-links.
According to Census County Business Patterns 2023, General Freight Trucking ranks #28 of 259 U.S. industries at the 4-digit NAICS level by total employment.
Similar workforce scale
Nearest peer industries by ABS(Census employment) (1,185,495 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 4841 · 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.