Business Data & Benchmarks · United States

Self-Storage Facility Revenue Benchmark

A self-storage facility rents individual units, lockers, parking spaces and sometimes climate-controlled or vehicle storage to households and businesses on a month-to-month basis, and adds revenue from insurance, locks, packing supplies and late fees. It is a real estate business with a small counter, so occupancy, rental rates and the cost of the land and buildings decide the result.

NAICS 531130, 2022 editionUnited States data by defaultSources and dates shown

Average Self-Storage Facility Revenue per Year 2022 Economic Census

The 2022 Economic Census counts every self-storage facility with paid employees and publishes their combined annual receipts. Dividing that total by the number of facilities gives the average annual revenue per employer establishment shown below.

≈$1,116,000 /year

Average annual gross revenue per employer establishment

18,465

Employer establishments in the United States, 2022

as published $20.6 billion

Combined annual gross revenue of employer establishments, 2022

How this is calculated: about $20.6 billion in combined annual receipts divided by 18,465 employer establishments works out to an average annual revenue of $1,116,000 per employer establishment.

Scope: Lessors of Miniwarehouses and Self-Storage Units, NAICS 531130. The category covers lessors of miniwarehouses and self-storage units renting space to households and businesses. General warehousing and moving companies are counted in separate categories. Classified separately in group 5311: 531110 Lessors of Residential Buildings and Dwellings; 531120 Lessors of Nonresidential Buildings (except Miniwarehouses); 531190 Lessors of Other Real Estate Property. 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

Lessors of Real Estate, NAICS 5311, the 2018 starting count compared with the count of five-year-old establishments in 2023.

52.4%the year-five count as a share of the starting count

Five-year establishment continuation benchmarkLine chart of industry continuation: 80.4 percent at 1 year, 69.1 percent at 2 years, 61.8 percent at 3 years, 58.4 percent at 4 years, 52.4 percent at 5 years. 9,464 establishments first reported paid employment in 2018; BusinessNES calculation from Census BDS.100%75%50%25%0%2014-2018 cohort range: 52.4 to 57.8 percentStart: 100 percent, the starting count1 year: 80.4 percent of the starting count2 years: 69.1 percent of the starting count3 years: 61.8 percent of the starting count4 years: 58.4 percent of the starting count5 years: 52.4 percent of the starting count80.469.161.858.452.4Start1 year2 years3 years4 years5 years9,464 establishments first reported paid employment in 2018; BusinessNES calculation from Census BDS.
Five years on, this industry group counted about 52 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 52.4 to 57.8 percent. This benchmark covers Lessors of Real Estate, NAICS 5311, as a whole, and this category accounts for 18,465 of the 141,028 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≈8%

Payroll share of receipts, Lessors of Miniwarehouses and Self-Storage Units, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

Approximately 8.0 percent of every revenue dollar goes to annual payroll, a small share because a facility is a property that rents space, and a manager with part-time help can run hundreds of units with automated gates and online rentals.

Payroll here excludes benefits, employer taxes and owner compensation, and it excludes the mortgage, property taxes, insurance and maintenance of the buildings and land, which are the true costs of the business.

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 establishment2.6
Employer establishments per firm2.06

Scale and ownership, Lessors of Miniwarehouses and Self-Storage Units, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

The average establishment employed about 2.6 people, and the industry counted 2.1 employer establishments per firm. A facility of that size is run by a manager and a part-time assistant, and the establishments per firm figure shows a trade in which multi-facility operators, from regional owners to national chains, account for a large part of the category.

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.

Questions Worth Asking BusinessNES analysis

Self-Storage Facility: what a property business's revenue leaves out.

Before you rely on this benchmark

  • What is the occupancy? Revenue follows occupied units multiplied by rental rates, and a facility in lease-up can run at low occupancy for years while a mature one sits near full. The census reports receipts, not occupancy, so the average blends both stages.
  • How are rents managed? Operators commonly offer low move-in rates and raise them for existing tenants over time, so the rate on the sign and the average rate paid differ. Revenue management decides what a full facility earns.
  • Chain or independent owner? National chains with online rental systems and dynamic pricing share this category with independent owners running a single site, and their scale, financing and marketing differ. The average blends chain-operated and independent facilities and does not reveal the ownership mix behind the figure.
  • Who owns the real estate? The land and buildings are the business, and whether they are owned outright, mortgaged or leased sets the fixed cost that occupancy must cover. Property economics decide the result, and none of them appear in this table.
  • Which markets are overbuilt? Storage supply per household varies widely by metro, and new development can push rates down across a market for years. A facility's local supply picture matters more than the national figure.
  • What ancillary revenue is there? Tenant insurance programs, lock and box sales, truck rental and late fees add revenue with little cost, and some operators earn a meaningful share this way. The census counts those receipts alongside rent.

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 facility with paid staff. An unstaffed facility run remotely by its owner is not counted, and general warehousing and moving companies are counted in separate categories.