Business Data & Benchmarks · United States

Convenience Store Revenue Benchmark

Small-format stores selling a limited line of groceries, drinks and everyday goods for immediate use.

NAICS 445131, 2022 editionUnited States data by defaultSources and dates shown

Average Convenience Store Revenue per Year 2022 Economic Census

The 2022 Economic Census counts every convenience retailer with paid employees and publishes their combined annual receipts. Dividing one by the other gives the average annual revenue per employer establishment below.

≈$1,201,000 /year

Average annual gross revenue per employer establishment

32,311

Employer establishments in the United States, 2022

as published $38.8 billion

Combined annual gross revenue of employer establishments, 2022

How this is calculated: about $38.8 billion in combined annual receipts divided by 32,311 employer establishments works out to an average annual revenue of $1,201,000 per employer establishment. Stores attached to a fuel forecourt report differently from those without one, and both sit inside this figure.

Scope: Convenience Retailers, NAICS 445131. Classified separately in group 4451: 445110 Supermarkets and Other Grocery Retailers (except Convenience Retailers); 445132 Vending Machine Operators. 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 July 2026

Employer Establishments at Year Five Varies by cohort

Grocery and Convenience Retailers, NAICS 4451, the 2018 starting count compared with the count of five-year-old establishments in 2023.

61.1%the year-five count as a share of the starting count

Five-year establishment continuation benchmarkLine chart of industry continuation: 81.2 percent at 1 year, 72.9 percent at 2 years, 67.9 percent at 3 years, 65.7 percent at 4 years, 61.1 percent at 5 years. 6,808 establishments first reported paid employment in 2018; BusinessNES calculation from Census BDS.100%75%50%25%0%2014-2018 cohort range: 48.2 to 61.1 percentStart: 100 percent, the starting count1 year: 81.2 percent of the starting count2 years: 72.9 percent of the starting count3 years: 67.9 percent of the starting count4 years: 65.7 percent of the starting count5 years: 61.1 percent of the starting count81.272.967.965.761.1Start1 year2 years3 years4 years5 years6,808 establishments first reported paid employment in 2018; BusinessNES calculation from Census BDS.
Five years on, this industry group counted about 61 establishments aged five for every 100 that first reported paid employment in 2018. Census compares counts by age rather than following the same businesses, so read it as a broad continuation indicator for the industry group, not as a tracked survival rate.

Across the 2014 to 2018 cohorts, five-year results ranged from 48.2 to 61.1 percent. This benchmark covers Grocery and Convenience Retailers, NAICS 4451, as a whole, and this category accounts for 32,311 of the 101,624 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.

MeasureValue
Annual payroll share of receipts, United States≈9%

Payroll share of receipts, Convenience Retailers, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

Approximately 9.0 percent of every revenue dollar goes to annual payroll, which is low for a staffed store open long hours. Revenue here is the value of goods sold, not what the store keeps from selling them.

Payroll here excludes benefits, employer taxes and owner compensation, and the census does not publish cost of goods for this table, so nothing on this page shows what a store keeps.

Business Scale and Ownership Structure Official data

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

MeasureValue
Paid employees per employer establishment4.7
Employer establishments per firm1.08

Scale and ownership, Convenience Retailers, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

The average establishment employed about 4.7 people, and the industry counted 1.1 employer establishments per firm.

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.

Explore More on BusinessNES

Neighbouring benchmark pages built from the same verified data, plus BusinessNES guides on the same subject.

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.

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 staffed store rather than each company, so a chain contributes one establishment per location.