Local Courier and Delivery Service Revenue Benchmark

Average Local Courier and Delivery Service Revenue per Year 2022 Economic Census

The 2022 Economic Census counts every local messenger and delivery 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.

≈$4,266,000 /year

Average annual gross revenue per employer establishment

How this is calculated: about $23.6 billion in combined annual receipts divided by 5,525 employer establishments works out to an average annual revenue of $4,266,000 per employer establishment.

Scope: Local Messengers and Local Delivery, NAICS 492210. The category covers local messengers and delivery services carrying small items within a metropolitan area, including independent restaurant meal delivery. Express couriers operating a national network are counted in a separate category. 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 Smaller cohort

Local Messengers and Local Delivery, NAICS 4922, 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 45.4 to 55.0 percent. This benchmark covers Local Messengers and Local Delivery, NAICS 4922, as a whole, and this category accounts for 5,525 of the 5,525 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, Local Messengers and Local Delivery, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

Approximately 30.0 percent of every revenue dollar goes to annual payroll, a substantial share because drivers and dispatchers are the service, though many couriers rely on independent contractor drivers whose pay sits outside this figure.

Payroll here excludes benefits, employer taxes and owner compensation, and it excludes contractor driver payments, vehicles, fuel and insurance, which together make up most of what a courier 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, Local Messengers and Local Delivery, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

The average establishment employed about 26.7 people, and the industry counted 1.1 employer establishments per firm. A courier of that size runs a dispatch office with a mix of employed and contracted drivers, and the establishments per firm figure shows a trade of mostly single-location companies with some regional operators 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

Local Courier and Delivery Service: what route density and contractor drivers do to a revenue average.

Before you rely on this benchmark

• Scheduled routes or on-demand? Daily routes for laboratories, pharmacies and banks bring steady revenue at contracted rates, while on-demand rush deliveries pay more per job and arrive unpredictably. The mix decides how a courier staffs and how stable its revenue is.
• Are the drivers contractors? Many couriers use independent contractors who supply their own vehicles and are paid per delivery, which keeps payroll low and shifts vehicle cost to the driver, but classification rules vary by state and have been contested. The staffing model shapes the payroll share on this page.
• Who are the competitors? National parcel carriers, app-based delivery platforms and in-house fleets of large retailers all compete for local deliveries, and pricing pressure is constant. A courier's niche, such as medical or legal delivery, matters more than its size.
• How dense are the routes? Revenue per driver hour depends on how many stops fit into a route, so a courier serving a compact downtown earns differently from one covering suburbs. Density is the core operating variable and is invisible in an annual total.
• What do specialized deliveries require? Medical specimens, pharmaceuticals and legal documents need chain-of-custody procedures, temperature control or bonded drivers, which raise both the price and the cost of a delivery. Specialized couriers and general couriers share this category.
• What does a vehicle cost per delivery? Fuel, insurance, maintenance and parking tickets in dense cities add up per stop, and a courier that owns its fleet carries those costs directly. The vehicle economics behind a delivery are not visible in receipts.