Land Surveying and Mapping Service Revenue Benchmark

Average Land Surveying and Mapping Service Revenue per Year 2022 Economic Census

The 2022 Economic Census counts every surveying and mapping firm with paid employees, excluding geophysical surveying, and publishes their combined annual receipts. Dividing that total by the number of firms gives the average annual revenue per employer establishment shown below.

≈$1,420,000 /year

Average annual gross revenue per employer establishment

How this is calculated: about $11 billion in combined annual receipts divided by 7,725 employer establishments works out to an average annual revenue of $1,420,000 per employer establishment.

Scope: Surveying and Mapping (except Geophysical) Services, NAICS 541370. The category covers land surveying firms and mapping services, including boundary, construction and topographic surveys. Geophysical surveying and engineering firms are counted in separate categories. Classified separately in group 5413: 541310 Architectural Services; 541320 Landscape Architectural Services; 541330 Engineering Services, and 4 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

Architectural, Engineering, and Related Services, NAICS 5413, 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 58.7 to 66.3 percent. This benchmark covers Architectural, Engineering, and Related Services, NAICS 5413, as a whole, and this category accounts for 7,725 of the 119,256 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, Surveying and Mapping (except Geophysical) Services, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

Approximately 44.0 percent of every revenue dollar goes to annual payroll, a high share because a surveying firm sells the licensed and field time of its people and has relatively few other large costs beyond vehicles and instruments.

Payroll here excludes benefits, employer taxes and owner compensation, and in a firm owned by its licensed surveyor the owner's own field and stamping work produces revenue that appears nowhere in the payroll figure.

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, Surveying and Mapping (except Geophysical) Services, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

The average establishment employed about 9.4 people, and the industry counted 1.1 employer establishments per firm. A firm of that size fields a couple of crews with a licensed surveyor and office staff for drafting and research, and the establishments per firm figure shows a trade of single-office firms with a few regional companies running several branches.

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

Land Surveying and Mapping Service: what a construction-driven professional trade looks like in a single year.

Before you rely on this benchmark

• Which market drives the work? Boundary surveys for home sales, construction staking for builders, subdivision plats for developers and mapping for utilities and agencies each rise and fall on their own cycle. A firm tied to residential construction has a very different year from one serving public infrastructure.
• How much field time does each job need? Crew time, travel and research in county records are the cost of a survey, and difficult terrain or old records can double the hours on a fixed-price job. Revenue per crew day is the number a firm manages, and it is invisible in an annual total.
• Who holds the license? Surveys must be sealed by a licensed surveyor, and licensing is state-specific with examination and experience requirements. The number of licensed professionals in a firm caps what it can produce and where it can work.
• What does the equipment cost? GPS receivers, total stations, laser scanners, drones and the software to process their data represent capital that must be replaced as technology moves. Equipment investment changes productivity per crew and sits outside a revenue figure.
• Is the firm part of an engineering practice? Many surveying departments sit inside engineering or architecture firms and are counted there, while this category covers firms whose main business is surveying and mapping. Standalone firms and departments compete for the same work under different overhead.
• Who carries the liability? A boundary error can trigger disputes, title claims and litigation years after the survey, so professional liability insurance and careful record keeping are permanent costs. That exposure is a permanent feature of the trade and sits outside the benchmark.