Business Data & Benchmarks · United States

Medical Laboratories Revenue Benchmark

Laboratories performing diagnostic testing on specimens referred by physicians and other providers.

NAICS 621511, 2022 editionUnited States data by defaultSources and dates shown

Average Medical Laboratory Revenue per Year 2022 Economic Census

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

≈$4,293,000 /year

Average annual gross revenue per employer establishment

13,065

Employer establishments in the United States, 2022

as published $56.1 billion

Combined annual gross revenue of employer establishments, 2022

How this is calculated: about $56.1 billion in combined annual receipts divided by 13,065 employer establishments works out to an average annual revenue of $4,293,000 per employer establishment. Testing volume moves with referrals rather than with anything a laboratory sells directly to patients.

Scope: Medical Laboratories, NAICS 621511. Classified separately in group 6215: 621512 Diagnostic Imaging Centers. 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 Industry group

Medical and Diagnostic Laboratories, NAICS 6215, the 2018 starting count compared with the count of five-year-old establishments in 2023.

56.9%the year-five count as a share of the starting count

Five-year establishment continuation benchmarkLine chart of industry continuation: 86.5 percent at 1 year, 74.9 percent at 2 years, 68.1 percent at 3 years, 66.3 percent at 4 years, 56.9 percent at 5 years. 2,573 establishments first reported paid employment in 2018; BusinessNES calculation from Census BDS.100%75%50%25%0%2014-2018 cohort range: 55.6 to 63.1 percentStart: 100 percent, the starting count1 year: 86.5 percent of the starting count2 years: 74.9 percent of the starting count3 years: 68.1 percent of the starting count4 years: 66.3 percent of the starting count5 years: 56.9 percent of the starting count86.574.968.166.356.9Start1 year2 years3 years4 years5 years2,573 establishments first reported paid employment in 2018; BusinessNES calculation from Census BDS.
Five years on, this industry group counted about 57 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 55.6 to 63.1 percent. This benchmark covers Medical and Diagnostic Laboratories, NAICS 6215, as a whole, and this category accounts for 13,065 of the 20,013 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.

MeasureValue
Annual payroll share of receipts, United States≈31%

Payroll share of receipts, Medical Laboratories, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

Approximately 31.0 percent of every revenue dollar goes to annual payroll. Technologists and pathologists run the assays, and instruments do not reduce the licensing and oversight that testing requires.

Payroll here excludes benefits, employer taxes and owner compensation, and it excludes reagents, instruments and their servicing, which are substantial in this trade.

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 establishment19.3
Employer establishments per firm2.89

Scale and ownership, Medical Laboratories, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

The average establishment employed about 19.3 people, and the industry counted 2.9 employer establishments per firm. That is well above one establishment per firm, which fits a category where large operators run networks of collection and testing sites.

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.

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 staffed laboratory or collection site rather than each company.