Commercial Property Lessor Revenue Benchmark

Average Commercial Property Lessor Revenue per Year 2022 Economic Census

The 2022 Economic Census counts every lessor of nonresidential buildings with paid employees, from a family owning one office building to a large real estate company, and publishes their combined annual receipts, which are the rents and related income collected. Dividing that total by the number of establishments gives the average annual revenue per employer establishment shown below.

≈$4,174,000 /year

Average annual gross revenue per employer establishment

How this is calculated: about $155.2 billion in combined annual receipts divided by 37,192 employer establishments works out to an average annual revenue of $4,174,000 per employer establishment.

Scope: Lessors of Nonresidential Buildings (except Miniwarehouses), NAICS 531120. The Census category is Lessors of Nonresidential Buildings (except Miniwarehouses), which counts owners leasing office, retail, industrial and other nonresidential buildings. Self-storage lessors, residential landlords and property managers working for owners are counted in separate categories. Classified separately in group 5311: 531110 Lessors of Residential Buildings and Dwellings; 531130 Lessors of Miniwarehouses and Self-Storage Units; 531190 Lessors of Other Real Estate Property. 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

Employer Establishments at Year Five Industry group

Lessors of Real Estate, NAICS 5311, the 2018 starting count compared with the count of five-year-old establishments in 2023.

Across the 2014 to 2018 cohorts, five-year results ranged from 52.4 to 57.8 percent. This benchmark covers Lessors of Real Estate, NAICS 5311, as a whole, and this category accounts for 37,192 of the 141,028 employer establishments in it. A count by age is not a survival rate, because the figures compare two headcounts rather than follow one set of businesses.

Payroll as a Share of Revenue Official data

Payroll divided by receipts, both as published for the same year.

Payroll share of receipts, Lessors of Nonresidential Buildings (except Miniwarehouses), United States, 2022 Economic Census.

Approximately 9.0 percent of every revenue dollar goes to annual payroll, a small share because rent is earned on property rather than labor and a lessor employs only the leasing, management and maintenance staff its buildings need.

Payroll here excludes benefits, employer taxes and owner compensation, and it excludes mortgage interest, property taxes, insurance, repairs and depreciation, which are the true costs of owning buildings and are not reported in this table.

Business Scale and Ownership Structure Official data

How large the average establishment is, and whether the population is independent operators or multi-site companies.

Scale and ownership, Lessors of Nonresidential Buildings (except Miniwarehouses), United States, 2022 Economic Census.

The average establishment employed about 5.8 people, and the industry averaged 1.1 employer establishments per firm, which confirms that multi-establishment ownership exists in the published population without showing how establishments are distributed across firms. As an illustration, that headcount could be a few leasing, management and maintenance staff for one owner's properties.

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

Commercial Property Lessor: what occupancy, leases and debt do to a landlord's average.

Before you rely on this benchmark

• What does revenue mean for a landlord? Receipts are rents and reimbursements collected, not the value of the buildings or the loans against them, and a lessor's heaviest costs, mortgage interest, property taxes and upkeep, are absent from this table. Read the figure as rent per employer establishment, not as a return.
• Office, retail or industrial? Office buildings, retail centers and warehouses lease under different terms, tenant mixes and market conditions, and office, retail and industrial markets can move in different directions at the same time. The property mix behind a lessor's receipts is not published.
• How full are the buildings? Occupancy and rent per square foot decide revenue, and a vacant floor costs money in taxes and upkeep while earning nothing. Occupancy is the central number of the trade and invisible in an annual total.
• Who pays the operating costs? Net leases pass taxes, insurance and maintenance to tenants as reimbursements that flow through receipts, while gross leases leave those costs with the landlord. The lease structure changes what the revenue figure means.
• How is the property financed? Debt service on the buildings is commonly the heaviest outlay a lessor makes, and refinancing at higher rates can turn a healthy rent roll into a strained one. Financing sits entirely outside a revenue figure.
• Establishment or owner? The census counts establishments with paid employees, so a lessor with several staffed offices contributes each one, while owners with no employees are not counted at all. The figure describes staffed leasing operations rather than every commercial landlord.