Profit Margin
10.3%
Net income ÷ total receipts (IRS SOI)
Transportation and Warehousing ·NAICS 486
NAICS 486 · IRS SOI 2013 (C corp) · Census CBP 2023
Pipeline Transportation - Industry Benchmarks
27 SBA loans on record, $7M in volume, for NAICS 486.
- 10.3%
- Net margin
- N/A
- Workers employed
- N/A
- Avg payroll / employee
- $7M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Data updated August 2026
The verdict · NAICS 486
Pipeline Transportation runs a 10.3% pre-tax net margin - in line with the national median - across 4K establishments employing N/A workers.
- 10.3%
- Pre-tax net margin (IRS SOI)
- N/A
- Workers employed (Census CBP)
- N/A
- Avg payroll / employee
- $7M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Use Pipeline Transportation's NAICS benchmark as a comparison point, not a forecast for one business.
Pipeline 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 Pipeline Transportation
Pipeline Transportation sits inside Transportation and Warehousing at a 10.3% net margin (in line with the national median), $8.1B in aggregate receipts across 519 returns, averaging $15.6B per establishment.
3,517 establishments employ N/A workers..
Pipeline Transportation sits in the 88th percentile for net margin among 3-digit NAICS industries with reported data.
Total Receipts
$8.1B
Annual revenue (IRS SOI)
Net Income
$830.8M
Pre-tax net income
Employment
N/A
Total employees (Census CBP)
Avg Payroll / Employee
N/A
Annual compensation
Establishments
3,517
Business locations
Release-over-release change
What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023
establishment count increased by 125. 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 Pipeline Transportation revenue goes
Pipeline Transportation margin vs national reference points
Pipeline Transportation net margin 34.2%
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
519 returns
Margin: 10.3% · Receipts: $8.1B
Sole Proprietorship SOI 2022
1,678 returns
Margin: 24.0% · Receipts: $321.5M
Financial Detail
- Total Tax Returns Filed
- 519
- Avg Receipts per Business
- $15.6B
Sub-Industries
| Industry | Profit Margin |
|---|---|
| Other Pipeline Transportation NAICS 4869 | N/A |
| Pipeline Transportation of Crude Oil NAICS 4861 | N/A |
| Pipeline Transportation of Natural Gas NAICS 4862 | N/A |
SBA Lending Activity
SBA FY2020–2026SBA Loans Approved
27
Total Loan Volume
$7M
Avg Loan Size
$268K
Jobs Supported
128
Program Breakdown
7(a) 27 (100%)
504 0 (0%)
Top SBA Lender
Wells Fargo Bank National Association
7 loans in this industry
New Business Share
55.6% of borrowers were new/startup businesses
Annual Lending Trend (6 yrs)
2020 3
2021 4
2023 6
2024 5
2025 8
2026 1
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the average revenue for Pipeline Transportation?
$8.1B in total annual receipts across all Pipeline Transportation businesses. Average per business: $15.6B.
How profitable is Pipeline Transportation?
10.3% net profit margin, in line with the national median.
How many businesses are in Pipeline Transportation?
3,517 business establishments.
What is the average payroll per employee in Pipeline Transportation?
Average payroll data for Pipeline Transportation is not available in the current Census CBP dataset.
Which states have the most Pipeline Transportation employment?
State-level employment data for Pipeline Transportation is not available in the current dataset.
How much SBA lending does Pipeline Transportation receive?
Pipeline Transportation businesses received 27 SBA loans totaling $7 million between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $268K. These loans supported 128 jobs at origination. Most lending (100%) came through the SBA 7(a) program.
Nationwide industries with similar benchmark drivers
Two IRS/Census peer sets for Pipeline Transportation, both at NAICS level 3 and excluding this code so the neighborhoods are not self-links.
According to IRS SOI 2013 IRS Statistics of Income, its reported pre-tax net margin ranks #9 of 75 at that same detail level.
Similar reported net margin
Nearest peer industries by ABS(IRS pre-tax margin) (10.3% 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 486 · 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.