Business Data & Benchmarks · United States
Sawmill Revenue Benchmark
A sawmill buys logs from loggers and landowners and saws them into lumber, timbers and byproducts such as chips and sawdust, selling to distributors, treaters, builders and pallet makers. Log costs, lumber prices, mill efficiency and the housing cycle shape a capital-heavy business whose revenue swings with commodity markets.
Average Sawmill Revenue per Year 2022 Economic Census
The 2022 Economic Census counts every sawmill with paid employees, from a small custom mill to a large softwood plant, and publishes their combined annual receipts. Dividing that total by the number of mills gives the average annual revenue per employer establishment shown below.
≈$14,754,000 /year
Average annual gross revenue per employer establishment
2,800
Employer establishments in the United States, 2022
as published $41.3 billion
Combined annual gross revenue of employer establishments, 2022
How this is calculated: about $41.3 billion in combined annual receipts divided by 2,800 employer establishments works out to an average annual revenue of $14,754,000 per employer establishment.
Scope: Sawmills, NAICS 321113. The category covers sawmills sawing logs into lumber, timbers and other rough wood products. Logging, millwork and wood preservation are counted in separate categories. Classified separately in group 3211: 321114 Wood Preservation. 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
Payroll as a Share of Revenue Official data
Payroll divided by receipts, both as published for the same year.
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Annual payroll share of receipts, United States | ≈12% |
Payroll share of receipts, Sawmills, United States, 2022 Economic Census.
Approximately 12.0 percent of every revenue dollar goes to annual payroll, a small share because logs are the main cost and because the large mills in this category process enormous volumes with automated lines.
Payroll here excludes benefits, employer taxes and owner compensation, and it excludes logs, energy, saws, kilns and the trucking of lumber to market, which together carry most of what a mill 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.
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Paid employees per employer establishment | 28.3 |
| Employer establishments per firm | 1.15 |
Scale and ownership, Sawmills, United States, 2022 Economic Census.
The average establishment employed about 28.3 people, and the industry averaged 1.1 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 blends large mills employing hundreds with small custom mills employing a few people, so it describes no single mill.
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
Sawmill: why lumber prices and mill scale make this average a moving target.
Before you rely on this benchmark
- Where were lumber prices that year? Lumber prices can swing widely within a year with housing demand and supply disruptions, and a mill's receipts move with them even when its output does not. The census year captures one point in a volatile market.
- Large mill or custom mill? Large production mills can pull the arithmetic industry average far above the scale of a custom sawmill cutting for local builders and furniture makers. Both sit in this category, so read the figure as a description of the trade.
- What do logs cost? Log prices depend on species, local supply, logging costs and competition from other mills, and the spread between log cost and lumber price is the whole business. Neither side of that spread appears in a receipts figure.
- How efficient is the mill? Recovery, meaning how much lumber a mill gets from each log, and throughput per shift decide whether a mill makes money at a given price. Two mills with similar receipts can differ mainly in what they keep.
- Does the mill dry and plane? Kilns, planers and grading turn rough lumber into higher-value products, but they need capital and energy. Whether a mill sells rough green lumber or finished product changes its revenue per board foot.
- What happens to the byproducts? Chips, bark and sawdust sold to pulp mills, pellet makers and farms add revenue and reduce disposal cost, and their markets rise and fall on their own. Byproduct sales are part of the receipts on this page.
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 mill with paid staff. Logging, millwork and wood preservation are counted in separate categories, and a portable mill run by its owner alone is not counted here.
No continuation chart appears on this page because the Census Business Dynamics Statistics series for this industry group does not meet the quality threshold BusinessNES applies before showing one.