Employment
263,050
Total employees (Census CBP)
Administrative and Support and Waste Management ·NAICS 5621
NAICS 5621 · IRS SOI 2023 · Census CBP
Waste Collection - Industry Benchmarks
$70,444/yr average annual pay, with 1,305 SBA loans on record for NAICS 5621.
- 5.6%
- Administrative and Support and Waste Management sector margin
- 263K
- Workers employed
- $70,444/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $567M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Data updated July 2026
The verdict · NAICS 5621
California leads Waste Collection 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)
- 263K
- Workers employed (Census CBP)
- $70,444/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $567M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Benchmarking Insights for Waste Collection
Waste Collection sits inside Administrative and Support and Waste Management, a sector that runs a 5.6% net margin overall.
13,064 establishments employ 263,050 workers (20.1/location) at $70,444/yr average annual pay. California leads employment, followed by Florida and Texas.
Avg Payroll / Employee
$70,444/yr
Annual compensation
Establishments
13,064
Business locations
Release-over-release change
What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023
Employment increased by 14,041; establishment count increased by 363. 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)
- $18.5B
- Avg Employees per Establishment
- 20.1
Sub-Industries
| Industry | Profit Margin |
|---|---|
| Waste Collection NAICS 56211 | N/A |
Top States by Employment
| State | Employment |
|---|---|
| California | 32,039 |
| Florida | 24,451 |
| Texas | 21,664 |
| New York | 11,348 |
| Illinois | 9,643 |
| Ohio | 9,612 |
| New Jersey | 8,548 |
| Michigan | 8,102 |
| North Carolina | 8,061 |
| Georgia | 7,221 |
Showing top 10 of 51 states
SBA Lending Activity
SBA FY2020–2026SBA Loans Approved
1,305
Total Loan Volume
$567M
Avg Loan Size
$434K
Jobs Supported
9,182
Program Breakdown
7(a) 1,207 (92%)
504 98 (8%)
Top SBA Lender
The Huntington National Bank
153 loans in this industry
New Business Share
47.6% of borrowers were new/startup businesses
Annual Lending Trend (7 yrs)
2020 173
2021 211
2022 187
2023 216
2024 230
2025 254
2026 34
Frequently Asked Questions
How profitable is Waste Collection?
IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at the NAICS 5621 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 Waste Collection?
13,064 business establishments. Together they employ 263,050 workers.
What is the average payroll per employee in Waste Collection?
$70,444/yr average annual pay per employee. Businesses average 20.1 employees per establishment.
Which states have the most Waste Collection employment?
California leads with 32,039 workers. Florida (24,451) and Texas (21,664) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does Waste Collection receive?
Waste Collection businesses received 1,305 SBA loans totaling $567 million between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $434K. These loans supported 9,182 jobs at origination. Most lending (92%) 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 60% of that same 259-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 Waste Collection
- No margin data, check the parent industry. Browse Administrative and Support and Waste Management
- 13,064 establishments, 263,050 workers. Payroll benchmarks
- 1,305 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 5621 · 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.