Employment
91,811
Total employees (Census CBP)
Administrative and Support and Waste Management ·NAICS 56144
NAICS 56144 · IRS SOI 2023 · Census CBP
Collection Agencies - Industry Benchmarks
$50,946/yr average annual pay, with 66 SBA loans on record for NAICS 56144.
- 5.6%
- Administrative and Support and Waste Management sector margin
- 92K
- Workers employed
- $50,946/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $56M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Data updated July 2026
The verdict · NAICS 56144
Texas leads Collection Agencies 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)
- 92K
- Workers employed (Census CBP)
- $50,946/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $56M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Benchmarking Insights for Collection Agencies
Collection Agencies sits inside Administrative and Support and Waste Management, a sector that runs a 5.6% net margin overall.
2,877 establishments employ 91,811 workers (31.9/location) at $50,946/yr average annual pay. Texas leads employment, followed by Florida and New York.
Avg Payroll / Employee
$50,946/yr
Annual compensation
Establishments
2,877
Business locations
Release-over-release change
What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023
Employment decreased by 14,373; establishment count decreased by 215. 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)
- $4.7B
- Avg Employees per Establishment
- 31.9
Sub-Industries
| Industry | Profit Margin |
|---|---|
| Collection Agencies NAICS 561440 | N/A |
Top States by Employment
| State | Employment |
|---|---|
| Texas | 13,155 |
| Florida | 8,863 |
| New York | 7,446 |
| California | 5,081 |
| Illinois | 3,668 |
| Pennsylvania | 3,398 |
| Georgia | 3,119 |
| Minnesota | 3,103 |
| Virginia | 3,027 |
| Ohio | 2,964 |
Showing top 10 of 50 states
SBA Lending Activity
SBA FY2020–2026SBA Loans Approved
66
Total Loan Volume
$56M
Avg Loan Size
$848K
Jobs Supported
1,985
Program Breakdown
7(a) 63 (95%)
504 3 (5%)
Top SBA Lender
The Huntington National Bank
7 loans in this industry
New Business Share
15.2% of borrowers were new/startup businesses
Annual Lending Trend (7 yrs)
2020 8
2021 12
2022 9
2023 6
2024 16
2025 14
2026 1
Frequently Asked Questions
How profitable is Collection Agencies?
IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at the NAICS 56144 level. Texas 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 Collection Agencies?
2,877 business establishments. Together they employ 91,811 workers.
What is the average payroll per employee in Collection Agencies?
$50,946/yr average annual pay per employee. Businesses average 31.9 employees per establishment.
Which states have the most Collection Agencies employment?
Texas leads with 13,155 workers. Florida (8,863) and New York (7,446) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does Collection Agencies receive?
Collection Agencies businesses received 66 SBA loans totaling $56 million between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $848K. These loans supported 1,985 jobs at origination. Most lending (95%) 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 58% 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.
- Sawmills and Wood Preservation 91,690
- Home Furnishing Merchant Wholesalers 91,550
- Museums 91,534
Benchmarking Collection Agencies
- No margin data, check the parent industry. Browse Administrative and Support and Waste Management
- 2,877 establishments, 91,811 workers. Payroll benchmarks
- 66 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 56144 · 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.