Language School Revenue Benchmark

Average Language School Revenue per Year 2022 Economic Census

The 2022 Economic Census counts every language school with paid employees and publishes their combined annual receipts. Dividing that total by the number of schools gives the average annual revenue per employer establishment shown below.

≈$829,000 /year

Average annual gross revenue per employer establishment

How this is calculated: about $1.3 billion in combined annual receipts divided by 1,558 employer establishments works out to an average annual revenue of $829,000 per employer establishment.

Scope: Language Schools, NAICS 611630. The category covers schools offering language instruction. Tutoring services, translation services and general schools are counted in separate categories. Classified separately in group 6116: 611610 Fine Arts Schools; 611620 Sports and Recreation Instruction; 611691 Exam Preparation and Tutoring, and 2 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

Other Schools and Instruction, NAICS 6116, 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 53.3 to 58.1 percent. This benchmark covers Other Schools and Instruction, NAICS 6116, as a whole, and this category accounts for 1,558 of the 58,784 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, Language Schools, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

Approximately 38.0 percent of every revenue dollar goes to annual payroll, a substantial share because teachers are the product and a school has little to buy beyond classroom space and materials.

Payroll here excludes benefits, employer taxes and owner compensation, and in a school where the owner also teaches, the owner's own classes produce 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, Language Schools, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

The average establishment employed about 12.4 people, and the industry averaged 1.2 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 roster of teachers, many part-time, with a small office.

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

Language School: what class sizes, corporate contracts and online competition do to a school's average.

Before you rely on this benchmark

• Group classes or private lessons? Group classes spread a teacher's hour across many students, while private lessons earn more per hour from one. The mix decides revenue per teaching hour, which is the number a school lives on.
• Who are the students? Immigrants learning English, professionals learning a language for work, children and travelers enroll for different reasons and lengths of time, and corporate contracts bring volume at negotiated rates. The student mix shapes both revenue and stability.
• How does online teaching fit? Remote classes widen the market and cut space costs, but they compete with apps and global online tutors at low prices. A school's balance of in-person and online instruction changes its cost base and its reach.
• How are teachers paid? Hourly, per-class and salaried teachers cost a school differently for the same class revenue, and native speakers with credentials can be hard to find in some languages. The staffing model behind a figure varies from school to school.
• Are there visa or accreditation programs? Schools enrolling international students on study visas face federal certification and reporting rules, and accreditation opens some markets and closes others. Compliance is a cost and a constraint outside a receipts figure.
• How full are the classrooms? A class runs whether it has four students or twelve, so enrollment per class decides whether a schedule pays. Utilization of teacher hours is invisible in an annual total.