Business Data & Benchmarks · United States
Bookstore and Newsstand Revenue Benchmark
A bookstore sells new books, magazines and newspapers, frequently alongside stationery, gifts, cafe service and author events, and earns on a retail margin that publishers largely fix through their discount terms. Curation, events and a loyal local audience are what distinguish one store from another selling the same titles.
Average Bookstore Revenue per Year 2022 Economic Census
The 2022 Economic Census counts every retailer of new books, newspapers and magazines with paid employees, from independent bookshops to chain stores and newsstands, and publishes their combined annual receipts. Dividing that total by the number of stores gives the average annual revenue per employer establishment shown below.
≈$2,107,000 /year
Average annual gross revenue per employer establishment
7,301
Employer establishments in the United States, 2022
as published $15.4 billion
Combined annual gross revenue of employer establishments, 2022
How this is calculated: about $15.4 billion in combined annual receipts divided by 7,301 employer establishments works out to an average annual revenue of $2,107,000 per employer establishment.
Scope: Book Retailers and News Dealers, NAICS 459210. The category covers retailers of new books, newspapers and magazines, from independent bookshops to newsstands and chain stores. Used bookstores are counted with used merchandise retailers. Nothing outside that code is counted on this page.
Source US Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census, Summary Statistics (ECNBASIC): ESTAB, RCPTOT and PAYANN by NAICS · Vintage 2022 Economic Census · Calculation BusinessNES · Accessed September 2026
Five-Year Survival in the Retail Sector Sector-level
Federal data does not track survival for bookstores and newsstands specifically. The honest closest measure is the sector that contains them: Retail Trade (NAICS 44-45). Here is the most recent fully observed five-year cohort.
59.8 percent of Retail Trade establishments opened in the year ended March 2020 were still operating five years later. Five-year survival was similar across these two consecutive cohorts: 60.7 percent and 59.8 percent.
Read this as sector base rates, not as a promise for this specific trade. The sector contains many business types with different economics, and survival for any one of them can sit above or below the curve. Book retailing has spent two decades adapting to online sellers and digital reading, and a store's fate depends on its local audience in ways a sector-wide survival curve cannot express.
Source US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Business Employment Dynamics, Table 7 · Scope Retail Trade sector, national · Observed through March 2025
Source and definition
Payroll as a Share of Revenue Official data
Payroll divided by receipts, both as published for the same year.
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Annual payroll share of receipts, United States | ≈12% |
Payroll share of receipts, Book Retailers and News Dealers, United States, 2022 Economic Census.
Approximately 12.0 percent of every revenue dollar goes to annual payroll, a small share in which the discount terms set by publishers and distributors, rather than staffing, decide how much room there is between the cover price and the wholesale cost.
Payroll here excludes benefits, employer taxes and owner compensation, and the census does not publish cost of goods, so nothing on this page shows what a store keeps after paying for its inventory.
Business Scale and Ownership Structure Official data
How large the average establishment is, and whether the population is independent operators or multi-site companies.
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Paid employees per employer establishment | 8.8 |
| Employer establishments per firm | 1.81 |
Scale and ownership, Book Retailers and News Dealers, United States, 2022 Economic Census.
The average establishment employed about 8.8 people, and the industry counted 1.8 employer establishments per firm. A bookstore staff covers the floor, the register and the events and ordering work that keep a store relevant, and the establishments per firm figure shows that chain stores account for a substantial part of this category alongside single independents.
These are arithmetic industry averages. They state the size of the average establishment and show that multi-establishment ownership exists. They do not show the distribution of business sizes and they do not measure market concentration.
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Data Source Notice
This product uses the Census Bureau Data API but is not endorsed or certified by the Census Bureau.
Figures above are from the 2022 Economic Census reference year, released by the Census Bureau in 2024 and 2025; markets have moved since.
Questions Worth Asking BusinessNES analysis
Bookstore and Newsstand: what an average across chains and independents leaves out.
Before you rely on this benchmark
- Independent store or chain branch? National chains and airport newsstands share this category with independent bookshops, and their scale, buying terms and rent differ widely. The average on this page mixes all of them, and an independent should expect a very different figure.
- What are the publisher terms? Discounts, return rights and payment terms set by publishers and wholesalers decide the margin on each title before a store sells anything. Returns of unsold stock protect the store from some risk but cost freight and labor on both journeys.
- How much of the sales floor is books? Many stores earn a growing part of their receipts from gifts, stationery, toys and a cafe, which carry different margins and different labor. The mix inside a single receipts figure varies from a pure bookshop to a gift store with a book section.
- Do events and community programs pay? Author readings, book clubs and school partnerships build the audience that sustains an independent store, but they consume staff time and often produce little direct revenue. Their value shows up over years rather than in one annual total.
- Which online competition matters? Online retailers, e-books and audiobooks compete for the same readers, and a store's position depends on local loyalty, curation and speed of special orders. That competitive position is invisible in a national benchmark.
- What does the space cost? Books are bulky and low in value per square foot compared with many retail goods, so rent per unit of sales runs high. A store in a prime district may look busy while spending much of its margin on the lease.
Sources and Methodology
Revenue, establishment counts, payroll, employment and firm counts on this page come from the 2022 Economic Census, Summary Statistics, published by the US Census Bureau. Averages and shares are BusinessNES calculations from those published totals, and each one names the two figures it divides.
The Census counts employer establishments, meaning each store or newsstand with paid staff. A used bookstore is counted with used merchandise retailers, and an online seller working alone is not counted here.
The survival curve is a sector-level series from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and describes the whole Retail Trade sector, not this business type on its own.