Employment
11,406,584
Total employees (Census CBP)
Accommodation and Food Services ·NAICS 7225
NAICS 7225 · IRS SOI 2023 · Census CBP
Restaurants and Other Eating Places - Industry Benchmarks
$24,280/yr average annual pay, with 37,167 SBA loans on record for NAICS 7225.
- 6.7%
- Accommodation and Food Services sector margin
- 11.4M
- Workers employed
- $24,280/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $19.3B
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Data updated July 2026
The verdict · NAICS 7225
California leads Restaurants and Other Eating Places 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)
- 11.4M
- Workers employed (Census CBP)
- $24,280/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $19.3B
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Benchmarking Insights for Restaurants and Other Eating Places
Restaurants and Other Eating Places sits inside Accommodation and Food Services, a sector that runs a 6.7% net margin overall.
618,476 establishments employ 11,406,584 workers (18.4/location) at $24,280/yr average annual pay. California leads employment, followed by Texas and Florida.
Avg Payroll / Employee
$24,280/yr
Annual compensation
Establishments
618,476
Business locations
Release-over-release change
What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023
Employment increased by 538,553; establishment count increased by 12,385. 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)
- $276.9B
- Avg Employees per Establishment
- 18.4
Sub-Industries
| Industry | Profit Margin |
|---|---|
| Restaurants and Other Eating Places NAICS 72251 | N/A |
Top States by Employment
| State | Employment |
|---|---|
| California | 1,404,974 |
| Texas | 1,126,293 |
| Florida | 798,469 |
| New York | 598,860 |
| Ohio | 424,932 |
| Illinois | 413,060 |
| Georgia | 395,597 |
| North Carolina | 395,007 |
| Pennsylvania | 364,990 |
| Michigan | 310,151 |
Showing top 10 of 51 states
SBA Lending Activity
SBA FY2020–2026SBA Loans Approved
37,167
Total Loan Volume
$19.3B
Avg Loan Size
$518K
Jobs Supported
706,419
Program Breakdown
7(a) 33,529 (90%)
504 3,638 (10%)
Top SBA Lender
The Huntington National Bank
4,061 loans in this industry
New Business Share
47.4% of borrowers were new/startup businesses
Annual Lending Trend (7 yrs)
2020 4,362
2021 4,965
2022 5,377
2023 6,323
2024 7,038
2025 8,020
2026 1,082
Frequently Asked Questions
How profitable is Restaurants and Other Eating Places?
IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at the NAICS 7225 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 Restaurants and Other Eating Places?
618,476 business establishments. Together they employ 11,406,584 workers.
What is the average payroll per employee in Restaurants and Other Eating Places?
$24,280/yr average annual pay per employee. Businesses average 18.4 employees per establishment.
Which states have the most Restaurants and Other Eating Places employment?
California leads with 1,404,974 workers. Texas (1,126,293) and Florida (798,469) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does Restaurants and Other Eating Places receive?
Restaurants and Other Eating Places businesses received 37,167 SBA loans totaling $19.3 billion between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $518K. These loans supported 706,419 jobs at origination. Most lending (90%) 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 100% 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.
- Employment Services 7,790,831
- General Medical and Surgical Hospitals 5,815,843
- Management of Companies and Enterprises 3,855,720
Benchmarking Restaurants and Other Eating Places
- No margin data, check the parent industry. Browse Accommodation and Food Services
- 618,476 establishments, 11,406,584 workers. Payroll benchmarks
- 37,167 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 7225 · 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.