Employment
21,508
Total employees (Census CBP)
Educational Services ·NAICS 611512
NAICS 611512 · IRS SOI (C corp) · Census CBP 2023
Flight Training - Industry Benchmarks
$67,672/yr average annual pay, with 105 SBA loans on record for NAICS 611512.
- 4.6%
- Educational Services sector margin
- 22K
- Workers employed
- $67,672/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $57M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Data updated August 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 4.6% net margin.
- 4.6%
- Educational Services sector margin (IRS SOI)
- 22K
- Workers employed (Census CBP)
- $67,672/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $57M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Use Flight Training's NAICS benchmark as a comparison point, not a forecast for one business.
Flight Training is reported here with financial measures from IRS Statistics of Income and workforce measures from Census County Business Patterns. The page keeps those source systems distinct, shows unavailable fields rather than estimating them, and links the underlying industry context so readers can compare the same NAICS activity before interpreting a margin or payroll figure.
Source: IRS SOI (C corporation headline) and Census County Business Patterns 2023
Benchmarking Insights for Flight Training
Flight Training sits inside Educational Services, a sector that runs a 4.6% 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.
Flight Training sits in the 32nd percentile for employment among 6-digit NAICS industries with reported data.
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.
Subscribe to this industry's release updates (RSS)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 4.6% net margin (IRS SOI 2013 C corp).
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.
Nationwide industries with similar benchmark drivers
Two IRS/Census peer sets for Flight Training, both at NAICS level 6 and excluding this code so the neighborhoods are not self-links.
According to Census County Business Patterns 2023, Flight Training ranks #545 of 801 U.S. industries at the 6-digit NAICS level by total employment.
Similar workforce scale
Nearest peer industries by ABS(Census employment) (21,508 here).
Read with this industry: Industry employment trends · Educational Services · 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 · CBP 2023 · IRS SOI
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.