Business Data & Benchmarks · United States

Highway and Bridge Construction Revenue Benchmark

Contractors building and rebuilding roads, streets, bridges and related public infrastructure.

NAICS 237310, 2022 editionUnited States data by defaultSources and dates shown

Average Highway and Bridge Construction Revenue per Year 2022 Economic Census

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

≈$16,671,000 /year

Average annual gross revenue per employer establishment

9,618

Employer establishments in the United States, 2022

as published $160.3 billion

Combined annual gross revenue of employer establishments, 2022

How this is calculated: about $160.3 billion in combined annual receipts divided by 9,618 employer establishments works out to an average annual revenue of $16,671,000 per employer establishment. Much of this work is publicly funded, so a single year reflects the contracts awarded that year rather than a steady state.

Scope: Highway, Street, and Bridge Construction, NAICS 237310. 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 Smaller cohort

Highway, Street, and Bridge Construction, NAICS 2373, the 2018 starting count compared with the count of five-year-old establishments in 2023.

63.5%the year-five count as a share of the starting count

Five-year establishment continuation benchmarkLine chart of industry continuation: 80.6 percent at 1 year, 75.5 percent at 2 years, 68.7 percent at 3 years, 67.4 percent at 4 years, 63.5 percent at 5 years. 310 establishments first reported paid employment in 2018; BusinessNES calculation from Census BDS.100%75%50%25%0%2014-2018 cohort range: 59.5 to 69.1 percentStart: 100 percent, the starting count1 year: 80.6 percent of the starting count2 years: 75.5 percent of the starting count3 years: 68.7 percent of the starting count4 years: 67.4 percent of the starting count5 years: 63.5 percent of the starting count80.675.568.767.463.5Start1 year2 years3 years4 years5 years310 establishments first reported paid employment in 2018; BusinessNES calculation from Census BDS.
Five years on, this industry group counted about 64 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 59.5 to 69.1 percent. This category is effectively the whole group: 9,618 of the 9,618 employer establishments in it, so the group figure and the category figure describe nearly the same population. 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≈18%

Payroll share of receipts, Highway, Street, and Bridge Construction, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

Approximately 18.0 percent of every revenue dollar goes to annual payroll. Crews, plant and materials all sit inside a contract value that a firm books as revenue, and subcontractor payments are not payroll.

Payroll here excludes benefits, employer taxes, payments to subcontractors and owner compensation, and the census ratio cannot show how much of a project a firm self-performs.

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 establishment34.5
Employer establishments per firm1.08

Scale and ownership, Highway, Street, and Bridge Construction, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

The average establishment employed about 34.5 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.

Questions Worth Asking BusinessNES analysis

Highway, Street, and Bridge Construction: the parts a ratio never shows.

Before you rely on this benchmark

  • How much of the backlog is publicly funded? Public capital budgets strongly influence demand in this market, although the effect of funding changes varies by region, project type and contractor backlog.
  • What is the bonding capacity? Surety bonding limits the size of work a contractor can pursue, so it can constrain growth independently of demand.
  • Who carries material price risk? Asphalt, steel and fuel move independently of the contract price, and whether escalation is allowed decides who absorbs that.
  • When can the work actually be built? Paving and concrete have weather windows, so crews and plant are paid for through months when little can be built.
  • What does traffic control cost? Working beside live traffic requires plant, signage and staff that produce nothing visible, and whether it is a separate pay item matters.
  • How is night work costed? Lane closures often have to happen overnight, and premium pay plus lower productivity make those hours far more expensive.

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 office or yard with paid staff rather than each project or joint venture.