Employment
N/A
Total employees (Census CBP)
Administrative and Support and Waste Management ·NAICS 561421
NAICS 561421 · IRS SOI 2023 · Census CBP
Telephone Answering Services - Industry Benchmarks
48 SBA loans on record, $28M in volume, for NAICS 561421.
- 5.6%
- Administrative and Support and Waste Management sector margin
- N/A
- Workers employed
- N/A
- Avg payroll / employee
- $28M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Data updated July 2026
The verdict · NAICS 561421
California leads Telephone Answering Services activity nationally. IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at this NAICS level, but the broader Administrative and Support and Waste Management sector runs a 5.6% net margin.
- 5.6%
- Administrative and Support and Waste Management sector margin (IRS SOI)
- N/A
- Workers employed (Census CBP)
- N/A
- Avg payroll / employee
- $28M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Benchmarking Insights for Telephone Answering Services
Telephone Answering Services sits inside Administrative and Support and Waste Management, a sector that runs a 5.6% net margin overall.
1,035 establishments employ N/A workers. California leads employment, followed by Pennsylvania and Ohio.
Avg Payroll / Employee
N/A
Annual compensation
Establishments
1,035
Business locations
Release-over-release change
What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023
establishment count decreased by 51. This comparison uses two published national Census County Business Patterns releases; suppressed fields are omitted rather than estimated.
Financial Detail
Top States by Employment
| State | Employment |
|---|---|
| California | 1,236 |
| Pennsylvania | 1,103 |
| Ohio | 712 |
| North Carolina | 512 |
| Connecticut | 499 |
| Illinois | 395 |
| Minnesota | 292 |
| Indiana | 213 |
| Colorado | 177 |
| Missouri | 130 |
Showing top 10 of 47 states
SBA Lending Activity
SBA FY2020–2026SBA Loans Approved
48
Total Loan Volume
$28M
Avg Loan Size
$581K
Jobs Supported
1,597
Program Breakdown
7(a) 47 (98%)
504 1 (2%)
Top SBA Lender
BMO Bank National Association
9 loans in this industry
New Business Share
10.4% of borrowers were new/startup businesses
Annual Lending Trend (7 yrs)
2020 12
2021 1
2022 6
2023 7
2024 12
2025 9
2026 1
Frequently Asked Questions
How profitable is Telephone Answering Services?
IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at the NAICS 561421 level. California leads this industry nationally. The broader Administrative and Support and Waste Management sector runs a 5.6% net margin (IRS SOI 2023).
How many businesses are in Telephone Answering Services?
1,035 business establishments.
What is the average payroll per employee in Telephone Answering Services?
Average payroll data for Telephone Answering Services is not available in the current Census CBP dataset.
Which states have the most Telephone Answering Services employment?
California leads with 1,236 workers. Pennsylvania (1,103) and Ohio (712) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does Telephone Answering Services receive?
Telephone Answering Services businesses received 48 SBA loans totaling $28 million between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $581K. These loans supported 1,597 jobs at origination. Most lending (98%) came through the SBA 7(a) program.
Benchmarking Telephone Answering Services
- No margin data, check the parent industry. Browse Administrative and Support and Waste Management
- 1,035 establishments, N/A workers. Payroll benchmarks
- 48 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 561421 · 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.