Transportation and Warehousing ·NAICS 486

NAICS 486 · IRS SOI 2023 · Census CBP

Pipeline Transportation - Industry Benchmarks

27 SBA loans on record, $7M in volume, for NAICS 486.

10.8%
Net margin
N/A
Workers employed
N/A
Avg payroll / employee
$7M
SBA lending, FY20–26

Data updated July 2026

The verdict · NAICS 486

Pipeline Transportation runs a 10.8% pre-tax net margin - in line with the national median - across 4K establishments employing N/A workers.

10.8%
Pre-tax net margin (IRS SOI)
N/A
Workers employed (Census CBP)
N/A
Avg payroll / employee
$7M
SBA lending, FY20–26

Benchmarking Insights for Pipeline Transportation

Pipeline Transportation sits inside Transportation and Warehousing at a 10.8% net margin (in line with the national median), $8.4B in aggregate receipts across 2,197 returns, averaging $3.8B per establishment.

3,517 establishments employ N/A workers..

Profit Margin

10.8%

Net income ÷ total receipts (IRS SOI)

Total Receipts

$8.4B

Annual revenue (IRS SOI)

Net Income

$907.9M

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.

Where each dollar of Pipeline Transportation revenue goes

Pipeline Transportation margin vs national reference points

Pipeline Transportation net margin 35.9%
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
519 returns 24%

Margin: 10.3% · Receipts: $8.1B

Sole Proprietorship
1,678 returns 76%

Margin: 24.0% · Receipts: $321.5M

Financial Detail

Total Tax Returns Filed
2,197
Avg Receipts per Business
$3.8B

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 FY2020–2026

SBA 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

View SBA lending rankings →

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the average revenue for Pipeline Transportation?
$8.4B in total annual receipts across all Pipeline Transportation businesses. Average per business: $3.8B.
How profitable is Pipeline Transportation?
10.8% 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.

Comparable industry benchmarks

These links are calculated from the current national dataset. They are comparison paths, not recommendations or evidence that businesses operate alike.

Closest reported net margins

Same NAICS detail level, ordered by the smallest difference in reported IRS pre-tax margin.

Benchmarking Pipeline Transportation

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 · 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.