Court Reporting Service Revenue Benchmark

Average Court Reporting Service Revenue per Year 2022 Economic Census

The 2022 Economic Census counts every court reporting and stenotype service with paid employees and publishes their combined annual receipts. Dividing that total by the number of services gives the average annual revenue per employer establishment shown below.

≈$971,000 /year

Average annual gross revenue per employer establishment

How this is calculated: about $3.1 billion in combined annual receipts divided by 3,161 employer establishments works out to an average annual revenue of $971,000 per employer establishment.

Scope: Court Reporting and Stenotype Services, NAICS 561492. The category covers court reporting and stenotype services producing verbatim records of proceedings and depositions. Law offices and general transcription services are counted in separate categories. Classified separately in group 5614: 561410 Document Preparation Services; 561421 Telephone Answering Services; 561422 Telemarketing Bureaus and Other Contact Centers, and 6 further codes. 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

Business Support Services, NAICS 5614, 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 47.7 to 56.1 percent. This benchmark covers Business Support Services, NAICS 5614, as a whole, and this category accounts for 3,161 of the 30,490 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, Court Reporting and Stenotype Services, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

Approximately 24.0 percent of every revenue dollar goes to annual payroll, a modest share for a service business because many reporters work as independent contractors paid per job and per page rather than as employees.

Payroll here excludes benefits, employer taxes and owner compensation, and it excludes payments to contract reporters and videographers, transcript production and remote deposition technology, which together carry much of what an agency spends.

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, Court Reporting and Stenotype Services, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

The average establishment employed about 4.1 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 small office scheduling reporters, many of them contractors, with production and billing staff.

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

Court Reporting Service: what per-page pricing, contract reporters and remote depositions do to an agency's average.

Before you rely on this benchmark

• Employees or contract reporters? Agencies commonly schedule independent reporters and pay them per job, keeping payroll small and shifting capacity risk, while some employ reporters directly. Whether reporters are employees or contractors is the main reason payroll shares vary between agencies.
• How is the work priced? Appearance fees, per-page transcript rates and charges for expedited delivery, copies and video produce revenue that depends on the volume of pages more than the number of proceedings. Transcript volume per job is not published.
• Are there enough reporters? Certified stenographic reporters are scarce in many regions, and training takes years, so an agency's ability to cover jobs is limited by the reporters it can book. Reporter supply caps growth more than demand does.
• How do remote depositions change the trade? Remote and hybrid proceedings widen the pool of reporters an agency can use and reduce travel, while digital recording and transcription tools compete with stenography in some settings. An agency's technology shapes its future more than its past receipts.
• Who are the clients? Litigation firms, insurers and corporate legal departments generate depositions on their own calendars, and an agency tied to a few large firms follows their caseloads. A short client list is a risk no average reveals.
• Which certifications apply? Reporter certification and licensing requirements vary by state, and some courts and clients require specific credentials. Compliance shapes which jobs an agency can accept.