Machine Shop Revenue Benchmark

Average Machine Shop Revenue per Year 2022 Economic Census

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

≈$2,606,000 /year

Average annual gross revenue per employer establishment

How this is calculated: about $44.7 billion in combined annual receipts divided by 17,163 employer establishments works out to an average annual revenue of $2,606,000 per employer establishment.

Scope: Machine Shops, NAICS 332710. The category covers machine shops machining metal and plastic parts to customer order, including turning, milling and grinding. Manufacturers of specific products and machinery repair services are counted in separate categories. Classified separately in group 3327: 332721 Precision Turned Product Manufacturing; 332722 Bolt, Nut, Screw, Rivet, and Washer Manufacturing. 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 Varies by cohort

Machine Shops, Turned Product, and Screw, Nut, and Bolt Manufacturing, NAICS 3327, 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 62.0 to 79.7 percent. This benchmark covers Machine Shops, Turned Product, and Screw, Nut, and Bolt Manufacturing, NAICS 3327, as a whole, and this category accounts for 17,163 of the 22,073 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, Machine Shops, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

Approximately 30.0 percent of every revenue dollar goes to annual payroll, a substantial share because skilled machinists are the product and material is often supplied by the customer or is a modest part of the invoice.

Payroll here excludes benefits, employer taxes and owner compensation, and in a shop where the owner runs a machine, the owner's own hours 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, Machine Shops, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

The average establishment employed about 13.2 people, and the industry averaged 1.0 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 several machinists across a few machines, with the owner quoting and programming as well.

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.

Explore More on BusinessNES

Neighbouring benchmark pages built from the same verified data, plus BusinessNES guides on the same subject.

• Types of Manufacturing Businesses
• Sheet Metal Fabrication Shop Benchmark
• Industrial Machinery Repair Benchmark
• Ornamental and Architectural Metal Shop Benchmark
• All Business Benchmarks

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

Machine Shop: what quoting, spindle hours and the customer base do to a job shop's revenue.

Before you rely on this benchmark

• Job shop or production shop? A shop making one-off repairs and prototypes quotes every job and rarely repeats, while a shop running production parts for a few manufacturers has volume and predictability. Both sit in this category with different pricing and equipment needs.
• How busy are the spindles? Machines and their financing cost the same whether they cut all day or sit between jobs, so spindle utilization decides whether the shop pays. That figure is the heart of shop economics and invisible in receipts.
• How concentrated are the customers? A shop that depends on one or two manufacturers rises and falls with their orders, and losing one can idle a machine overnight. Customer concentration is a central risk a revenue average cannot show.
• Who supplies the material? Some customers supply their own stock and pay for machining only, while other jobs include material at a markup. The share of material in receipts changes what the revenue figure means for the shop.
• Where do the machinists come from? Skilled machinists and CNC operators are scarce in many regions, and training an apprentice takes years. Labor availability caps a shop's growth more than its floor space does.
• What does the equipment cost? CNC mills, lathes, tooling and inspection equipment must be financed, maintained and eventually replaced, and a shop's machine list is a better guide to its capacity than its receipts.