Employment
232,333
Total employees (Census CBP)
Health Care and Social Assistance ·NAICS 621511
NAICS 621511 · IRS SOI 2023 · Census CBP
Medical Laboratories - Industry Benchmarks
$74,156/yr average annual pay, with 329 SBA loans on record for NAICS 621511.
- 11.4%
- Health Care and Social Assistance sector margin
- 232K
- Workers employed
- $74,156/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $191M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Data updated July 2026
The verdict · NAICS 621511
California leads Medical Laboratories activity nationally. IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at this NAICS level, but the broader Health Care and Social Assistance sector runs a 11.4% net margin.
- 11.4%
- Health Care and Social Assistance sector margin (IRS SOI)
- 232K
- Workers employed (Census CBP)
- $74,156/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $191M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Benchmarking Insights for Medical Laboratories
Medical Laboratories sits inside Health Care and Social Assistance, a sector that runs a 11.4% net margin overall.
16,635 establishments employ 232,333 workers (14.0/location) at $74,156/yr average annual pay. California leads employment, followed by Texas and New York.
Avg Payroll / Employee
$74,156/yr
Annual compensation
Establishments
16,635
Business locations
Release-over-release change
What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023
Employment decreased by 6,482; establishment count increased by 3,729. 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)
- $17.2B
- Avg Employees per Establishment
- 14.0
Top States by Employment
| State | Employment |
|---|---|
| California | 32,649 |
| Texas | 21,350 |
| New York | 10,939 |
| Tennessee | 6,963 |
| Illinois | 6,885 |
| Ohio | 6,637 |
| Virginia | 5,651 |
| Massachusetts | 4,766 |
| Washington | 4,043 |
| Kentucky | 3,168 |
Showing top 10 of 51 states
SBA Lending Activity
SBA FY2020–2026SBA Loans Approved
329
Total Loan Volume
$191M
Avg Loan Size
$581K
Jobs Supported
4,115
Program Breakdown
7(a) 298 (91%)
504 31 (9%)
Top SBA Lender
Banco Popular de Puerto Rico
39 loans in this industry
New Business Share
38.0% of borrowers were new/startup businesses
Annual Lending Trend (7 yrs)
2020 43
2021 51
2022 46
2023 54
2024 71
2025 58
2026 6
Frequently Asked Questions
How profitable is Medical Laboratories?
IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at the NAICS 621511 level. California leads this industry nationally. The broader Health Care and Social Assistance sector runs a 11.4% net margin (IRS SOI 2023).
How many businesses are in Medical Laboratories?
16,635 business establishments. Together they employ 232,333 workers.
What is the average payroll per employee in Medical Laboratories?
$74,156/yr average annual pay per employee. Businesses average 14.0 employees per establishment.
Which states have the most Medical Laboratories employment?
California leads with 32,649 workers. Texas (21,350) and New York (10,939) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does Medical Laboratories receive?
Medical Laboratories businesses received 329 SBA loans totaling $191 million between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $581K. These loans supported 4,115 jobs at origination. Most lending (91%) 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 87% 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 Medical Laboratories
- No margin data, check the parent industry. Browse Health Care and Social Assistance
- 16,635 establishments, 232,333 workers. Payroll benchmarks
- 329 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 621511 · 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.