Employment
4,965,080
Total employees (Census CBP)
Accommodation and Food Services ·NAICS 722513
NAICS 722513 · IRS SOI 2023 · Census CBP
Limited-Service Restaurants - Industry Benchmarks
$20,857/yr average annual pay, with 13,085 SBA loans on record for NAICS 722513.
- 6.7%
- Accommodation and Food Services sector margin
- 5.0M
- Workers employed
- $20,857/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $6.5B
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Data updated July 2026
The verdict · NAICS 722513
California leads Limited-Service Restaurants 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)
- 5.0M
- Workers employed (Census CBP)
- $20,857/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $6.5B
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Benchmarking Insights for Limited-Service Restaurants
Limited-Service Restaurants sits inside Accommodation and Food Services, a sector that runs a 6.7% net margin overall.
270,088 establishments employ 4,965,080 workers (18.4/location) at $20,857/yr average annual pay. California leads employment, followed by Texas and Florida.
Avg Payroll / Employee
$20,857/yr
Annual compensation
Establishments
270,088
Business locations
Release-over-release change
What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023
Employment increased by 253,307; establishment count increased by 4,909. 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)
- $103.6B
- Avg Employees per Establishment
- 18.4
Top States by Employment
| State | Employment |
|---|---|
| California | 604,758 |
| Texas | 545,407 |
| Florida | 296,500 |
| New York | 207,613 |
| Ohio | 204,250 |
| Illinois | 189,552 |
| Georgia | 189,341 |
| North Carolina | 185,475 |
| Michigan | 143,754 |
| Pennsylvania | 139,513 |
Showing top 10 of 51 states
SBA Lending Activity
SBA FY2020–2026SBA Loans Approved
13,085
Total Loan Volume
$6.5B
Avg Loan Size
$499K
Jobs Supported
244,824
Program Breakdown
7(a) 11,949 (91%)
504 1,136 (9%)
Top SBA Lender
The Huntington National Bank
1,484 loans in this industry
New Business Share
51.9% of borrowers were new/startup businesses
Annual Lending Trend (7 yrs)
2020 1,499
2021 2,070
2022 1,903
2023 2,124
2024 2,385
2025 2,743
2026 361
Frequently Asked Questions
How profitable is Limited-Service Restaurants?
IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at the NAICS 722513 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 Limited-Service Restaurants?
270,088 business establishments. Together they employ 4,965,080 workers.
What is the average payroll per employee in Limited-Service Restaurants?
$20,857/yr average annual pay per employee. Businesses average 18.4 employees per establishment.
Which states have the most Limited-Service Restaurants employment?
California leads with 604,758 workers. Texas (545,407) and Florida (296,500) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does Limited-Service Restaurants receive?
Limited-Service Restaurants businesses received 13,085 SBA loans totaling $6.5 billion between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $499K. These loans supported 244,824 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 100% 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.
- Full-Service Restaurants 5,387,020
- General Medical and Surgical Hospitals 5,815,843
- Professional Employer Organizations 3,777,023
Benchmarking Limited-Service Restaurants
- No margin data, check the parent industry. Browse Accommodation and Food Services
- 270,088 establishments, 4,965,080 workers. Payroll benchmarks
- 13,085 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 722513 · 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.