What is the average gross income for a small business?
Genius asked:
Too many people have different opinions about how much a small business makes and I need to know what the average gross income is
Too many people have different opinions about how much a small business makes and I need to know what the average gross income is
It truly depends on the business. I think you will need to provide more information on the kind of business first.
Well it totally depends on if you’re selling your crap on ebay or if you have 500 employees that do business all over the world. To constitute a small business depends on the field you’re in. You can have up to 1500 employees and making upwards of $35 Million and still be considered a small business. So it depends on the business what the AVERAGE is. The most successful convenience store Isnt even CLOSE to that figure.
I don’t think there is an average–small business can be one person as a sole proprietor with no employees or a business with under 150 employees. It would depend on many factors, but there is no ‘average’.
The most recent data is in the economic census of 2002.
99% of all US businesses have 10 or fewer employees. In spite of this the US government considers any business with less than 500 employees to be small business. Using the government’s standard small business accounts for 99.9% of all businesses in the US, all of the job growth over the past decade and roughly half of all employment and just over 50% of the gdp.
I didn’t feel like adding up all of the numbers in the Statistical Abstract of the United States to get you the average gross receipts (you can find the data at for 2002 — the latest year for which the Census Bureau is reporting data.)
For what it’s worth sole proprietors with no employees average just under $44,000 per year (again 2002 data from the same source).
Hope this helps
Jerry-the-bookkeeper