Business Data & Benchmarks · United States

Clothing Store Revenue Benchmark

Clothing and clothing accessories retailers.

NAICS 458110, 2022 editionUnited States data by defaultSources and dates shown

Average Clothing Store Revenue per Year 2022 Economic Census

Every clothing retailer with paid employees appears in the 2022 Economic Census. The average below divides their combined receipts by the number of stores counted.

≈$3,160,000 /year

Average annual gross revenue per employer establishment

90,230

Employer establishments in the United States, 2022

as published $284.8 billion

Combined annual gross revenue of employer establishments, 2022

How this is calculated: about $284.8 billion in combined annual revenue divided by 90,230 employer establishments works out to $3,160,000. This is an average per establishment, and averages get pulled up by large, busy operations, so a typical business may sit below it.

Scope: Clothing and Clothing Accessories Retailers (NAICS 458110). Covers clothing and clothing accessories retailers under the 2022 NAICS retail structure. Employer establishments only: owner-operated businesses with no paid employees are not in these figures.

Inventory here has a clock on it. A garment that does not sell in its season is marked down rather than carried forward at full value, so buying decisions made months earlier weigh heavily on the result. That timing risk, not rent or staffing, is often what separates the stores that work from the ones that do not.

Apparel commits cash long before the selling season. Orders are placed months ahead against a forecast, and the size and color mix inside each order decides how much of it sells at full price. Whatever is left when the season turns is often marked down rather than carried forward, so the buying calendar shapes the year more than the sales floor does.

Independent boutiques and larger apparel chains are counted together, and the average is pulled upward by the second. Fitting rooms, returns and size curves are cost centers unique to apparel, and none of them exists in a category that sells one size of everything.

Source US Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census, Summary Statistics (ECNBASIC): ESTAB, RCPTOT and PAYANN by NAICS · Vintage 2022 Economic Census · Calculation BusinessNES · Accessed July 2026

Where these figures come from
Establishment counts and combined receipts are published figures from the official source named in each figure's source line. BusinessNES divides one by the other and rounds to the nearest $10,000; no other adjustment is made. The full chain from published figure to this page is described on the methodology page.

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.

Five-Year Survival in the Retail Sector Sector-level

Federal data does not track survival for clothing stores 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.

Five-year establishment survival benchmarkLine chart of establishment survival: 88.0 percent at Year 1, 79.6 percent at Year 2, 72.3 percent at Year 3, 65.9 percent at Year 4, 59.8 percent at Year 5. Cohort opened in the year ended March 2020, observed through March 2025100%75%50%25%0%Opened: 100 percent, the starting groupYear 1: 88.0 percent of the starting group still operatingYear 2: 79.6 percent of the starting group still operatingYear 3: 72.3 percent of the starting group still operatingYear 4: 65.9 percent of the starting group still operatingYear 5: 59.8 percent of the starting group still operating88.079.672.365.959.8OpenedYear 1Year 2Year 3Year 4Year 5Cohort opened in the year ended March 2020, observed through March 2025

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. Mall and street locations have diverged sharply in foot traffic, and the census figures record receipts without recording where the store stands.

Source US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Business Employment Dynamics, Table 7 · Scope Retail Trade sector, national · Observed through March 2025

Source and definition
Survival of private-sector establishments by opening year, Retail Trade, NAICS 44-45, published by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. An establishment is a physical location; the sector spans store retailers of every kind, from food and pharmacy to clothing, hardware and specialty goods. Official file: bls.gov, Business Employment Dynamics, Table 7

Payroll as a Share of Revenue Official data

Payroll covers sales floor and stockroom staff, not the seasonal buy that sits on the racks.

Cost lineShare of receipts
Annual payroll share of receipts, United States≈11%

Payroll share of receipts, Clothing and Clothing Accessories Retailers, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

Approximately 11.0 percent of every revenue dollar in this category goes to annual payroll. As the census defines it, payroll includes wages, salaries, reported tips, commissions and bonuses; it excludes employer-paid benefits, employer payroll taxes, contractor payments and owner compensation. Treat it as one verified anchor, not a full labor cost breakdown. Payroll takes a small share of receipts, since merchandise is the dominant cost.

This is not total labor cost or profit margin.

How to read this number
Payroll here is the census annual payroll figure, PAYANN: it includes wages, salaries, reported tips, commissions and bonuses paid to employees, and it excludes employer-paid benefits, employer payroll taxes, contractor payments and proprietor compensation. BusinessNES divides it by the same category total receipts, RCPTOT, and rounds to a whole percent.

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Sources and Methodology

Every figure on this page is bound to a published source, and each figure's own source line names that source precisely: the 2022 Economic Census for counts, receipts and payroll, and the Census Bureau's Business Dynamics Statistics for the industry continuation benchmark. Where a page shows a sector survival curve instead, that series comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

BusinessNES performs the arithmetic on those published figures and nothing else. Receipts are divided by establishments, and payroll by receipts. The age-five establishment count is divided by the age-zero establishment count for the same four-digit industry group, then repeated across five age-zero cohorts to give a reference and a range. This category's share of its industry group comes from the same published tables. Every one of them is recomputed from the sealed source files at each release and blocks publication if it does not match. Results are rounded and marked approximate. The reference year is 2022 for revenue and payroll; treat every figure as a baseline, not today's market.

Category scope matters: these figures cover Clothing and Clothing Accessories Retailers (NAICS 458110), employer establishments only. The scope note near the top of the page explains what that includes and excludes for this business type. Footwear and jewelry retailers have their own Census categories.

Full method, sources and limits
The methodology page describes the full chain for every figure on this site: the published source, the sealed snapshot it was read from, the exact calculation if BusinessNES performed one, and the honest limits of scope and vintage. Read the methodology.

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