NAICS Sector 44 · IRS SOI + Census CBP 2023

Retail Trade

SBA 7(a)/504 files show 28,276 loans ($19.9B) for NAICS 44, loan-count rank #6 of 24 sectors; FY2020→FY2025 trajectory is falling.

3.0%
Avg net margin
9.3M
Workers
107
Industries
$2.9T
Annual receipts

Food and Beverage Stores anchors Retail Trade (36% of level-3 employment), but sibling NAICS-3 lines still take meaningful shares. Read it as an anchor-plus-breadth sector, not a one-line map.

#1 · NAICS 445

Food and Beverage Stores

3,333,898 · 36%

#2 · NAICS 441

Motor Vehicle and Parts Dealers

2,015,007 · 22%

#3 · NAICS 448

Clothing and Clothing Accessories Stores

1,505,822 · 16%

Anchor mix · Herfindahl 0.226 (moderate) · top-three 73% of level-3 employment.

Where Retail Trade employment sits

Census CBP level-2 sector rows · California holds 18.2% · top 5 = 61.5%

  1. #1 California 1,702,044
  2. #2 Texas 1,382,827
  3. #3 Florida 1,146,619
  4. #4 New York 862,844
  5. #5 Pennsylvania 650,539

Sector ranks #6 of 24 by establishment count.

SBA lending in NAICS 44

FY2020–FY2025 · 7(a)+504 roll-up · #6/24 sectors by loan count

Loans

28,276

Volume

$19.9B

Jobs at origination

243,937

Top lender

The Huntington National Bank

FY2020→FY2025: 4636→4499 loans (falling, -137).

CBP payroll per worker: $44/yr · SOI receipts/est $4.0M.

Highest-margin industries in Retail Trade

Pre-tax net margin by sub-industry, IRS Statistics of Income 2023.

Building Material and Garden…5.9%Clothing and Clothing Access…5.5%Furniture and Home Furnishin…5.2%Health and Personal Care Sto…4.9%Food and Beverage Stores2.6%

All Industries in This Sector

Industry Profit Margin
Building Material and Garden Equipment and Supplies Dealers

NAICS 444

 5.9%
Clothing and Clothing Accessories Stores

NAICS 448

 5.5%
Electronics and Appliance Stores

NAICS 443

 1.6%
Food and Beverage Stores

NAICS 445

 2.6%
Furniture and Home Furnishings Stores

NAICS 442

 5.2%
Gasoline Stations

NAICS 447

 0.9%
Health and Personal Care Stores

NAICS 446

 4.9%
Motor Vehicle and Parts Dealers

NAICS 441

 1.9%

Top Profit Margins

Largest Employers

  1. #1 Food and Beverage Stores 3,333,898
  2. #2 Motor Vehicle and Parts Dealers 2,015,007
  3. #3 Clothing and Clothing Accessories Stores 1,505,822
  4. #4 Health and Personal Care Stores 1,066,142
  5. #5 Gasoline Stations 1,016,960

Frequently Asked Questions

Who finances Retail Trade small businesses?
28,276 SBA 7(a)/504 loans totaling $19.9B (FY2020–FY2026); sector loan-count rank #6/24. FY2020→FY2025 loan counts went 4636→4499 (falling). Busiest lender on record: The Huntington National Bank.
Where is Retail Trade employment concentrated geographically?
California leads with 1,702,044 workers (18.2% of Census CBP sector headcount); next are Texas (1,382,827) and Florida (1,146,619). Top-5 share is 61.5%. Figures use level-2 sector rows only.
How wide is the margin gap inside NAICS 44?
IRS SOI prints a 3.0% sector average for Retail Trade, but the sub-industry spread is 4.9 pp, from Building Material and Garden Equipment and Supplies Dealers at 5.9% down to thinner lines in the same sector.
Disclaimer: PlainBizBench provides publicly available IRS and Census data for informational purposes only on NAICS 44 (Retail Trade). This is not financial, tax, or business advice. Consult a qualified accountant or financial advisor for business-specific guidance.

Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.

Data sourced from official public datasets. See our methodology for details. Retrieved and formatted by PlainBizBench

Census CBP 2023 + IRS SOI 2013 for NAICS 44 · SBA 7(a)/504 $19.9B. CSV: sector 44 rows.

Every figure on PlainBizBench is rendered directly from federal source data, no number is typed in by an editor. This page aggregates every industry within this sector, 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.