Profit Margin
4.7%
Net income ÷ total receipts (IRS SOI)
Transportation and Warehousing ·NAICS 493
NAICS 493 · IRS SOI 2023 · Census CBP
Warehousing and Storage - Industry Benchmarks
541 SBA loans on record, $633M in volume, for NAICS 493.
- 4.7%
- Net margin
- N/A
- Workers employed
- N/A
- Avg payroll / employee
- $633M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Data updated July 2026
The verdict · NAICS 493
Warehousing and Storage runs a 4.7% pre-tax net margin - below the national median - across 22K establishments employing N/A workers.
- 4.7%
- Pre-tax net margin (IRS SOI)
- N/A
- Workers employed (Census CBP)
- N/A
- Avg payroll / employee
- $633M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Benchmarking Insights for Warehousing and Storage
Warehousing and Storage sits inside Transportation and Warehousing at a 4.7% net margin (below the national median), $24.3B in aggregate receipts across 4,313 returns, averaging $5.6B per establishment.
21,521 establishments employ N/A workers. Pennsylvania leads employment, followed by Indiana and North Carolina.
Total Receipts
$24.3B
Annual revenue (IRS SOI)
Net Income
$1.1B
Pre-tax net income
Employment
N/A
Total employees (Census CBP)
Avg Payroll / Employee
N/A
Annual compensation
Establishments
21,521
Business locations
Release-over-release change
What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023
establishment count increased by 1,542. This comparison uses two published national Census County Business Patterns releases; suppressed fields are omitted rather than estimated.
Where each dollar of Warehousing and Storage revenue goes
Warehousing and Storage margin vs national reference points
Warehousing and Storage net margin 15.7%
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
4,313 returns 100%
Margin: 4.7% · Receipts: $24.3B
Financial Detail
- Total Tax Returns Filed
- 4,313
- Avg Receipts per Business
- $5.6B
Sub-Industries
| Industry | Profit Margin |
|---|---|
| Warehousing and Storage NAICS 4931 | N/A |
Top States by Employment
| State | Employment |
|---|---|
| Pennsylvania | 92,955 |
| Indiana | 51,626 |
| North Carolina | 49,295 |
| Virginia | 33,443 |
| Arizona | 29,351 |
| South Carolina | 27,508 |
| Massachusetts | 19,606 |
| Iowa | 16,487 |
| Utah | 16,419 |
| Mississippi | 14,689 |
Showing top 10 of 51 states
SBA Lending Activity
SBA FY2020–2026SBA Loans Approved
541
Total Loan Volume
$633M
Avg Loan Size
$1170K
Jobs Supported
5,760
Program Breakdown
7(a) 387 (72%)
504 154 (28%)
Top SBA Lender
Bank Five Nine
19 loans in this industry
New Business Share
30.7% of borrowers were new/startup businesses
Annual Lending Trend (7 yrs)
2020 71
2021 108
2022 80
2023 92
2024 86
2025 94
2026 10
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the average revenue for Warehousing and Storage?
$24.3B in total annual receipts across all Warehousing and Storage businesses. Average per business: $5.6B.
How profitable is Warehousing and Storage?
4.7% net profit margin, below the national median.
How many businesses are in Warehousing and Storage?
21,521 business establishments.
What is the average payroll per employee in Warehousing and Storage?
Average payroll data for Warehousing and Storage is not available in the current Census CBP dataset.
Which states have the most Warehousing and Storage employment?
Pennsylvania leads with 92,955 workers. Indiana (51,626) and North Carolina (49,295) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does Warehousing and Storage receive?
Warehousing and Storage businesses received 541 SBA loans totaling $633 million between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $1170K. These loans supported 5,760 jobs at origination. Most lending (72%) 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: Warehousing and Storage reports a higher net margin than 43% of the 79 IRS-tracked industries at the same NAICS detail level. 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 reported net margins
Same NAICS detail level, ordered by the smallest difference in reported IRS pre-tax margin.
Benchmarking Warehousing and Storage
- Net margin: 4.7% vs sector. Browse Transportation and Warehousing
- 21,521 establishments, N/A workers. Payroll benchmarks
- 541 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 493 · 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.