Employment
232,333
Total employees (Census CBP)
Health Care and Social Assistance ·NAICS 621511
NAICS 621511 · IRS SOI (C corp) · Census CBP 2023
Medical Laboratories - Industry Benchmarks
$74,156/yr average annual pay, with 329 SBA loans on record for NAICS 621511.
- 5.3%
- Health Care and Social Assistance sector margin
- 232K
- Workers employed
- $74,156/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $191M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Data updated August 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 5.3% net margin.
- 5.3%
- 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
Use Medical Laboratories's NAICS benchmark as a comparison point, not a forecast for one business.
Medical Laboratories 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 Medical Laboratories
Medical Laboratories sits inside Health Care and Social Assistance, a sector that runs a 5.3% 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.
Medical Laboratories sits in the 87th percentile for employment among 6-digit NAICS industries with reported data.
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.
Subscribe to this industry's release updates (RSS)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 5.3% net margin (IRS SOI 2013 C corp).
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.
Nationwide industries with similar benchmark drivers
Two IRS/Census peer sets for Medical Laboratories, both at NAICS level 6 and excluding this code so the neighborhoods are not self-links.
According to Census County Business Patterns 2023, Medical Laboratories ranks #102 of 801 U.S. industries at the 6-digit NAICS level by total employment.
Similar workforce scale
Nearest peer industries by ABS(Census employment) (232,333 here).
Read with this industry: Industry employment trends · Health Care and Social Assistance · 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 · 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.