Employment
158,632
Total employees (Census CBP)
Information ·NAICS 51211
NAICS 51211 · IRS SOI 2023 · Census CBP
Motion Picture and Video Production - Industry Benchmarks
$86,308/yr average annual pay, with 762 SBA loans on record for NAICS 51211.
- 9.1%
- Information sector margin
- 159K
- Workers employed
- $86,308/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $249M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Data updated July 2026
The verdict · NAICS 51211
Georgia leads Motion Picture and Video Production activity nationally. IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at this NAICS level, but the broader Information sector runs a 9.1% net margin.
- 9.1%
- Information sector margin (IRS SOI)
- 159K
- Workers employed (Census CBP)
- $86,308/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $249M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Benchmarking Insights for Motion Picture and Video Production
Motion Picture and Video Production sits inside Information, a sector that runs a 9.1% net margin overall.
17,366 establishments employ 158,632 workers (9.1/location) at $86,308/yr average annual pay. Georgia leads employment, followed by Texas and Illinois.
Avg Payroll / Employee
$86,308/yr
Annual compensation
Establishments
17,366
Business locations
Release-over-release change
What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023
Employment increased by 18,667; establishment count decreased by 317. 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)
- $13.7B
- Avg Employees per Establishment
- 9.1
Sub-Industries
| Industry | Profit Margin |
|---|---|
| Motion Picture and Video Production NAICS 512110 | N/A |
Top States by Employment
| State | Employment |
|---|---|
| Georgia | 4,907 |
| Texas | 3,006 |
| Illinois | 2,443 |
| North Carolina | 2,338 |
| Tennessee | 1,814 |
| New Jersey | 1,662 |
| Pennsylvania | 1,358 |
| Virginia | 1,042 |
| Ohio | 968 |
| Missouri | 740 |
Showing top 10 of 51 states
SBA Lending Activity
SBA FY2020–2026SBA Loans Approved
762
Total Loan Volume
$249M
Avg Loan Size
$327K
Jobs Supported
4,815
Program Breakdown
7(a) 691 (91%)
504 71 (9%)
Top SBA Lender
Newtek Bank, National Association
55 loans in this industry
New Business Share
18.0% of borrowers were new/startup businesses
Annual Lending Trend (7 yrs)
2020 71
2021 90
2022 106
2023 124
2024 174
2025 181
2026 16
Frequently Asked Questions
How profitable is Motion Picture and Video Production?
IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at the NAICS 51211 level. Georgia leads this industry nationally. The broader Information sector runs a 9.1% net margin (IRS SOI 2023).
How many businesses are in Motion Picture and Video Production?
17,366 business establishments. Together they employ 158,632 workers.
What is the average payroll per employee in Motion Picture and Video Production?
$86,308/yr average annual pay per employee. Businesses average 9.1 employees per establishment.
Which states have the most Motion Picture and Video Production employment?
Georgia leads with 4,907 workers. Texas (3,006) and Illinois (2,443) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does Motion Picture and Video Production receive?
Motion Picture and Video Production businesses received 762 SBA loans totaling $249 million between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $327K. These loans supported 4,815 jobs at origination. Most lending (91%) 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 73% of that same 551-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.
- All Other General Purpose Machinery Manufacturing 158,898
- Testing Laboratories 158,265
- Paperboard Container Manufacturing 157,227
Benchmarking Motion Picture and Video Production
- No margin data, check the parent industry. Browse Information
- 17,366 establishments, 158,632 workers. Payroll benchmarks
- 762 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 51211 · 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.