Employment
21,508
Total employees (Census CBP)
Educational Services ·NAICS 611512
NAICS 611512 · IRS SOI 2023 · Census CBP
Flight Training - Industry Benchmarks
$67,672/yr average annual pay, with 105 SBA loans on record for NAICS 611512.
- 9.3%
- Educational Services sector margin
- 22K
- Workers employed
- $67,672/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $57M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Data updated July 2026
The verdict · NAICS 611512
Florida leads Flight Training activity nationally. IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at this NAICS level, but the broader Educational Services sector runs a 9.3% net margin.
- 9.3%
- Educational Services sector margin (IRS SOI)
- 22K
- Workers employed (Census CBP)
- $67,672/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $57M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Benchmarking Insights for Flight Training
Flight Training sits inside Educational Services, a sector that runs a 9.3% net margin overall.
1,221 establishments employ 21,508 workers (17.6/location) at $67,672/yr average annual pay. Florida leads employment, followed by California and Georgia.
Avg Payroll / Employee
$67,672/yr
Annual compensation
Establishments
1,221
Business locations
Release-over-release change
What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023
Employment increased by 1,552; establishment count increased by 76. 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)
- $1.5B
- Avg Employees per Establishment
- 17.6
Top States by Employment
| State | Employment |
|---|---|
| Florida | 5,917 |
| California | 1,529 |
| Georgia | 844 |
| New Jersey | 659 |
| North Carolina | 428 |
| Illinois | 380 |
| Nevada | 277 |
| Minnesota | 241 |
| Missouri | 221 |
| Alabama | 214 |
Showing top 10 of 46 states
SBA Lending Activity
SBA FY2020–2026SBA Loans Approved
105
Total Loan Volume
$57M
Avg Loan Size
$542K
Jobs Supported
836
Program Breakdown
7(a) 99 (94%)
504 6 (6%)
Top SBA Lender
U.S. Bank, National Association
12 loans in this industry
New Business Share
36.2% of borrowers were new/startup businesses
Annual Lending Trend (7 yrs)
2020 19
2021 14
2022 8
2023 17
2024 22
2025 15
2026 10
Frequently Asked Questions
How profitable is Flight Training?
IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at the NAICS 611512 level. Florida leads this industry nationally. The broader Educational Services sector runs a 9.3% net margin (IRS SOI 2023).
How many businesses are in Flight Training?
1,221 business establishments. Together they employ 21,508 workers.
What is the average payroll per employee in Flight Training?
$67,672/yr average annual pay per employee. Businesses average 17.6 employees per establishment.
Which states have the most Flight Training employment?
Florida leads with 5,917 workers. California (1,529) and Georgia (844) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does Flight Training receive?
Flight Training businesses received 105 SBA loans totaling $57 million between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $542K. These loans supported 836 jobs at origination. Most lending (94%) 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 32% 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.
Benchmarking Flight Training
- No margin data, check the parent industry. Browse Educational Services
- 1,221 establishments, 21,508 workers. Payroll benchmarks
- 105 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 611512 · 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.