Employment
432,542
Total employees (Census CBP)
Accommodation and Food Services ·NAICS 7224
NAICS 7224 · IRS SOI 2023 · Census CBP
Drinking Places (Alcoholic Beverages) - Industry Benchmarks
$25,612/yr average annual pay, with 2,400 SBA loans on record for NAICS 7224.
- 6.7%
- Accommodation and Food Services sector margin
- 433K
- Workers employed
- $25,612/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $1.2B
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Data updated July 2026
The verdict · NAICS 7224
California leads Drinking Places (Alcoholic Beverages) activity nationally. IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at this NAICS level, but the broader Accommodation and Food Services sector runs a 6.7% net margin.
- 6.7%
- Accommodation and Food Services sector margin (IRS SOI)
- 433K
- Workers employed (Census CBP)
- $25,612/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $1.2B
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Benchmarking Insights for Drinking Places (Alcoholic Beverages)
Drinking Places (Alcoholic Beverages) sits inside Accommodation and Food Services, a sector that runs a 6.7% net margin overall.
40,835 establishments employ 432,542 workers (10.6/location) at $25,612/yr average annual pay. California leads employment, followed by Texas and New York.
Avg Payroll / Employee
$25,612/yr
Annual compensation
Establishments
40,835
Business locations
Release-over-release change
What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023
Employment increased by 31,118; establishment count increased by 577. 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)
- $11.1B
- Avg Employees per Establishment
- 10.6
Sub-Industries
| Industry | Profit Margin |
|---|---|
| Drinking Places (Alcoholic Beverages) NAICS 72241 | N/A |
Top States by Employment
| State | Employment |
|---|---|
| California | 43,279 |
| Texas | 39,037 |
| New York | 33,167 |
| Florida | 26,296 |
| Illinois | 26,133 |
| Wisconsin | 18,206 |
| Pennsylvania | 16,951 |
| Ohio | 15,243 |
| Michigan | 14,523 |
| Colorado | 10,705 |
Showing top 10 of 51 states
SBA Lending Activity
SBA FY2020–2026SBA Loans Approved
2,400
Total Loan Volume
$1.2B
Avg Loan Size
$497K
Jobs Supported
31,930
Program Breakdown
7(a) 2,107 (88%)
504 293 (12%)
Top SBA Lender
The Huntington National Bank
211 loans in this industry
New Business Share
45.9% of borrowers were new/startup businesses
Annual Lending Trend (7 yrs)
2020 368
2021 280
2022 381
2023 417
2024 445
2025 437
2026 72
Frequently Asked Questions
How profitable is Drinking Places (Alcoholic Beverages)?
IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at the NAICS 7224 level. California leads this industry nationally. The broader Accommodation and Food Services sector runs a 6.7% net margin (IRS SOI 2023).
How many businesses are in Drinking Places (Alcoholic Beverages)?
40,835 business establishments. Together they employ 432,542 workers.
What is the average payroll per employee in Drinking Places (Alcoholic Beverages)?
$25,612/yr average annual pay per employee. Businesses average 10.6 employees per establishment.
Which states have the most Drinking Places (Alcoholic Beverages) employment?
California leads with 43,279 workers. Texas (39,037) and New York (33,167) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does Drinking Places (Alcoholic Beverages) receive?
Drinking Places (Alcoholic Beverages) businesses received 2,400 SBA loans totaling $1.2 billion between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $497K. These loans supported 31,930 jobs at origination. Most lending (88%) 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 73% 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 Drinking Places (Alcoholic Beverages)
- No margin data, check the parent industry. Browse Accommodation and Food Services
- 40,835 establishments, 432,542 workers. Payroll benchmarks
- 2,400 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 7224 · 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.