Transportation and Warehousing ·NAICS 493120

NAICS 493120 · IRS SOI 2023 · Census CBP

Refrigerated Warehousing and Storage - Industry Benchmarks

$56,905/yr average annual pay, with 55 SBA loans on record for NAICS 493120.

1K
Establishments
66K
Workers employed
$56,905/yr
Avg payroll / employee
$106M
SBA lending, FY20–26

Data updated July 2026

The verdict · NAICS 493120

California leads Refrigerated Warehousing and Storage activity nationally, across 1K establishments employing 66K workers. IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at this NAICS level.

1K
Business establishments (Census)
66K
Workers employed (Census CBP)
$56,905/yr
Avg payroll / employee
$106M
SBA lending, FY20–26

Benchmarking Insights for Refrigerated Warehousing and Storage

Refrigerated Warehousing and Storage sits inside Transportation and Warehousing.

1,376 establishments employ 66,236 workers (48.1/location) at $56,905/yr average annual pay. California leads employment, followed by Georgia and Texas.

Employment

66,236

Total employees (Census CBP)

Avg Payroll / Employee

$56,905/yr

Annual compensation

Establishments

1,376

Business locations

Release-over-release change

What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023

Employment increased by 9,026; establishment count increased by 154. 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)
$3.8B
Avg Employees per Establishment
48.1

Top States by Employment

State Employment
California 8,072
Georgia 6,712
Texas 6,674
Illinois 4,615
Pennsylvania 3,600
New Jersey 3,153
Virginia 1,364
Arkansas 1,052
Alabama 604
New Mexico 55

Showing top 10 of 44 states

SBA Lending Activity

SBA FY2020–2026

SBA Loans Approved

55

Total Loan Volume

$106M

Avg Loan Size

$1919K

Jobs Supported

949

Program Breakdown

7(a) 34 (62%)
504 21 (38%)

Top SBA Lender

WBD, Inc.

6 loans in this industry

New Business Share

34.5% of borrowers were new/startup businesses

Annual Lending Trend (6 yrs)

2020
12
2021
12
2022
9
2023
8
2024
6
2025
8

Frequently Asked Questions

How many businesses are in Refrigerated Warehousing and Storage?
1,376 business establishments. Together they employ 66,236 workers.
What is the average payroll per employee in Refrigerated Warehousing and Storage?
$56,905/yr average annual pay per employee. Businesses average 48.1 employees per establishment.
Which states have the most Refrigerated Warehousing and Storage employment?
California leads with 8,072 workers. Georgia (6,712) and Texas (6,674) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does Refrigerated Warehousing and Storage receive?
Refrigerated Warehousing and Storage businesses received 55 SBA loans totaling $106 million between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $1919K. These loans supported 949 jobs at origination. Most lending (62%) 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 63% of that same 801-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.

Benchmarking Refrigerated Warehousing and Storage

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 493120 · 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.

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.