Business Data & Benchmarks · United States

Used Car Dealer Revenue Benchmark

Dealerships selling used vehicles, independent of a new vehicle franchise.

NAICS 441120, 2022 editionUnited States data by defaultSources and dates shown

Average Used Car Dealer Revenue per Year 2022 Economic Census

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

≈$6,395,000 /year

Average annual gross revenue per employer establishment

24,944

Employer establishments in the United States, 2022

as published $159.5 billion

Combined annual gross revenue of employer establishments, 2022

How this is calculated: about $159.5 billion in combined annual receipts divided by 24,944 employer establishments works out to an average annual revenue of $6,395,000 per employer establishment. Revenue here is the value of vehicles sold, not the margin on them, which is why the figure is large and the payroll share small.

Scope: Used Car Dealers, NAICS 441120. Classified separately in group 4411: 441110 New Car Dealers. 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

Automobile dealers, NAICS 4411, the 2018 starting count compared with the count of five-year-old establishments in 2023.

57.4%the year-five count as a share of the starting count

Five-year establishment continuation benchmarkLine chart of industry continuation: 81.6 percent at 1 year, 70.7 percent at 2 years, 64.9 percent at 3 years, 61.1 percent at 4 years, 57.4 percent at 5 years. 2,823 establishments first reported paid employment in 2018; BusinessNES calculation from Census BDS.100%75%50%25%0%2014-2018 cohort range: 53.8 to 57.4 percentStart: 100 percent, the starting count1 year: 81.6 percent of the starting count2 years: 70.7 percent of the starting count3 years: 64.9 percent of the starting count4 years: 61.1 percent of the starting count5 years: 57.4 percent of the starting count81.670.764.961.157.4Start1 year2 years3 years4 years5 years2,823 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 53.8 to 57.4 percent. This benchmark covers Automobile dealers, NAICS 4411, as a whole, and this category accounts for 24,944 of the 47,427 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≈6%

Payroll share of receipts, Used Car Dealers, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

Approximately 6.0 percent of every revenue dollar goes to annual payroll, very low for a staffed business. That follows from what revenue means here rather than from lean staffing: the vehicles themselves dominate receipts.

Payroll here excludes benefits, employer taxes and owner compensation, and the census does not publish the cost of the vehicles, so nothing on this page shows what a lot keeps.

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 establishment7.3
Employer establishments per firm1.08

Scale and ownership, Used Car Dealers, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

The average establishment employed about 7.3 people, and the industry counted 1.1 employer establishments per firm. The average establishment is much smaller than a franchised new car dealership, which is the clearest difference between the two.

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.

Questions Worth Asking BusinessNES analysis

Used Car Dealers: what an operator checks next.

Before you rely on this benchmark

  • Where does the inventory come from? Auction, trade-in and street purchase carry different acquisition costs and different reconditioning risk, and none of that appears in a revenue figure.
  • How long does a vehicle sit? Days to turn is the working metric in this trade. A slow lot ties up capital in depreciating stock while paying to insure and store it.
  • Is finance sold in house? Buy-here-pay-here operations carry credit risk that a cash lot does not, and the two look similar in the census while being different businesses.
  • What does reconditioning cost per unit? Reconditioning consumes part of the gap between acquisition cost and retail price, alongside financing, overhead, selling costs and the dealer's margin.
  • What warranty exposure is carried? Anything sold with a warranty creates a liability that outlives the sale, and how it is reserved for decides whether a good month stays good.

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 lot rather than each company or license holder.