Employment
799,400
Total employees (Census CBP)
Administrative and Support and Waste Management ·NAICS 561612
NAICS 561612 · IRS SOI 2023 · Census CBP
Security Guards and Patrol Services - Industry Benchmarks
$31,538/yr average annual pay, with 430 SBA loans on record for NAICS 561612.
- 5.6%
- Administrative and Support and Waste Management sector margin
- 799K
- Workers employed
- $31,538/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $168M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Data updated July 2026
The verdict · NAICS 561612
California leads Security Guards and Patrol 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)
- 799K
- Workers employed (Census CBP)
- $31,538/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $168M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Benchmarking Insights for Security Guards and Patrol Services
Security Guards and Patrol Services sits inside Administrative and Support and Waste Management, a sector that runs a 5.6% net margin overall.
11,104 establishments employ 799,400 workers (72.0/location) at $31,538/yr average annual pay. California leads employment, followed by New York and Texas.
Avg Payroll / Employee
$31,538/yr
Annual compensation
Establishments
11,104
Business locations
Release-over-release change
What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023
Employment increased by 34,720; establishment count increased by 445. 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)
- $25.2B
- Avg Employees per Establishment
- 72.0
Top States by Employment
| State | Employment |
|---|---|
| California | 157,154 |
| New York | 86,889 |
| Texas | 60,912 |
| Florida | 55,056 |
| Virginia | 34,553 |
| Illinois | 34,528 |
| Pennsylvania | 29,883 |
| New Jersey | 23,628 |
| Georgia | 23,591 |
| Maryland | 22,089 |
Showing top 10 of 51 states
SBA Lending Activity
SBA FY2020–2026SBA Loans Approved
430
Total Loan Volume
$168M
Avg Loan Size
$391K
Jobs Supported
16,909
Program Breakdown
7(a) 412 (96%)
504 18 (4%)
Top SBA Lender
Newtek Bank, National Association
50 loans in this industry
New Business Share
19.5% of borrowers were new/startup businesses
Annual Lending Trend (7 yrs)
2020 32
2021 57
2022 44
2023 55
2024 96
2025 135
2026 11
Frequently Asked Questions
How profitable is Security Guards and Patrol Services?
IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at the NAICS 561612 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 Security Guards and Patrol Services?
11,104 business establishments. Together they employ 799,400 workers.
What is the average payroll per employee in Security Guards and Patrol Services?
$31,538/yr average annual pay per employee. Businesses average 72.0 employees per establishment.
Which states have the most Security Guards and Patrol Services employment?
California leads with 157,154 workers. New York (86,889) and Texas (60,912) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does Security Guards and Patrol Services receive?
Security Guards and Patrol Services businesses received 430 SBA loans totaling $168 million between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $391K. These loans supported 16,909 jobs at origination. Most lending (96%) 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 96% 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.
- Landscaping Services 802,899
- Insurance Agencies and Brokerages 818,561
- Computer Systems Design Services 766,160
Benchmarking Security Guards and Patrol Services
- No margin data, check the parent industry. Browse Administrative and Support and Waste Management
- 11,104 establishments, 799,400 workers. Payroll benchmarks
- 430 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 561612 · 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.