--- url: 'https://lonelyentrepreneur.com/founder-the-average-nobody-reaches/' title: 'The Average Business With No Employees Takes In $57,611. At Least Three in Four Take In Less.' author: name: Samantha Lankford url: 'https://lonelyentrepreneur.com/author/sam/' date: '2026-10-02T10:30:00-04:00' modified: '2026-10-02T10:30:00-04:00' type: post summary: 'America''s 30.4 million businesses with no employees average $57,611 in receipts, but 60.6% take in under $25,000 and at least 75.5% fall below that average.' categories: - Blog Post image: 'https://lonelyentrepreneur.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/founder-the-average-nobody-reaches-hero.webp' published: true --- # The Average Business With No Employees Takes In $57,611. At Least Three in Four Take In Less. ![The Lonely Entrepreneur](https://lonelyentrepreneur.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/TLE_Logo_mobile-490W-26-26.png)Founder Data Report ![The Average Business With No Employees Takes In $57,611. At Least Three in Four Take In Less.](https://lonelyentrepreneur.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/founder-the-average-nobody-reaches-hero.webp) Founder Data Report # The Average Business With No Employees Takes In $57,611. At Least Three in Four Take In Less. By Michael Dermer • Updated October 2, 2026 Get clarity — download the free Entrepreneur Survival Guide Summary. [Download the Survival Guide →](https://lonelyentrepreneur.com/esg-overview/?utm_source=blog-cta) The Census Bureau counts every American business that files a tax return and has no payroll. There are 30,427,808 of them, and between them they took in $1.75 trillion in 2023. The average is $57,611 and it describes almost nobody. Quick Answer There are **30,427,808 businesses** in the United States with no paid employees, and between them they took in **$1.75 trillion** in 2023. Divide one by the other and the average is **$57,611**. That average is the number that gets quoted, and it describes almost nobody: **18,439,574** of these businesses — **60.6%** of them — took in under $25,000 for the year, and 7,061,612 took in under $5,000. At least **75.5%** took in less than the average, and the median business sits somewhere between $10,000 and $25,000. These are receipts, not profit: the money coming in, before anything is paid out. The 30-second version - 60.6% of American businesses with no employees took in under $25,000 in 2023. 23.2% took in under $5,000. - The average, $57,611, falls inside the $50,000 to $99,999 band, so at least 75.5% of these businesses are below it. The median is somewhere in the $10,000 to $24,999 band — between 2.3 and 5.8 times smaller than the average. - Only 13.2% took in $100,000 or more, and 117,060 took in a million or more — 0.38% of the population. 905 took in $5 million or more. - It holds across the whole economy. In 15 of the 18 sectors most of these businesses are under $25,000, from 35.6% in real estate and leasing to 83.3% in educational services — and at the $50,000 line all 18 are, the lowest being 53.2%. - Receipts are gross receipts, not profit, and this file counts businesses with no payroll only. A business with one employee is not in it. ## A small year is the normal shape of this, not the sign you are failing at it Progress taking longer than expected is the single most common experience in this population, and the published numbers say so plainly. If you are building something on your own and the figure at the end of the year is small, that is the ordinary shape of the thing. The pressure of a year that did not work is heavier when you believe everyone else cleared a bar you missed, and doubt feeds on a comparison that was never true in the first place. Most of them did not clear it either: at least 75.5% of the 30,427,808 businesses in this file came in under the average that gets quoted at you. Absorbing a flat year and adjusting without stopping is the work. Measuring it against a number three in four businesses never reach turns an ordinary setback into a reason to quit. The Data Of every 100 American businesses with no employees, by what they took in, 2023 Under $5,000 — 23 in 100 $5,000 to $24,999 — 38 in 100 $25,000 to $49,999 — 15 in 100 $50,000 to $99,999 — 11 in 100 $100,000 or more — 13 in 100 Each dot is one business in a hundred, rounded to whole dots from the published shares so the five groups sum to exactly 100. The two orange groups are 61 dots between them, standing for the 60.6% of these businesses that took in under $25,000. Receipts, not profit. U.S. Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics 2023, United States file (nonemp23us), retrieved 28 September 2026. Businesses with no paid employees, by receipts-size class; size-class definitions from the Census US record layout. Receipts are published for the total only — every size class withholds them — so band figures are counts of businesses. > $57,611 is the average. 60.6% of them took in under $25,000. ## The average sits above three quarters of the businesses it describes An average is only a useful summary when the thing it summarises is roughly symmetrical, and this one is not. $57,611 lands inside the $50,000 to $99,999 band, which means at least 75.5% of the population — everyone in a band entirely below it — took in less than average. The true figure is higher than that, because some of the businesses in the $50,000 to $99,999 band are under $57,611 too; the file does not say how many, so 75.5% is a floor rather than a measurement. Run the ladder the other way and the shape is clearer still: 23.2% of these businesses are under $5,000, 60.6% under $25,000, 75.5% under $50,000. Only 13.2% reach $100,000. The Data Share of businesses with no employees taking in less than each amount, 2023 Under $5,0007,061,612 of 30,427,808businesses23.2%Under $10,00011,513,729 of 30,427,808businesses37.8%Under $25,00018,439,574 of 30,427,808businesses60.6%Under $50,00022,971,578 of 30,427,808businesses75.5%Under $100,00026,397,386 of 30,427,808businesses86.8%Under $250,00029,007,241 of 30,427,808businesses95.3%Under $500,00029,899,146 of 30,427,808businesses98.3%Under $1 million30,310,748 of 30,427,808businesses99.6%Under $2.5 million30,415,391 of 30,427,808businesses99.96% A running total, so each bar contains the ones above it. The remaining 0.04% took in $2.5 million or more. The axis is the full 0-100. U.S. Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics 2023, United States file (nonemp23us), retrieved 28 September 2026. Businesses with no paid employees, by receipts-size class; size-class definitions from the Census US record layout. Receipts are published for the total only — every size class withholds them — so band figures are counts of businesses. ## It is not one industry dragging the number down The obvious objection is that this is an artefact of one enormous low-receipts sector — the delivery and ride-hailing work that has grown fastest in this population. It is not. Transportation and warehousing, which holds that work, sits at 62.8% — close to the national 60.6% rather than far below it. The under-$25,000 share is above half in 15 of the 18 sectors, and in the three where it is not — real estate and leasing, construction, wholesale trade — it still runs 35.6% to 49.9%. Move the line to $50,000 and the exceptions disappear: in **all 18 sectors** most of these businesses took in under $50,000, the lowest being real estate and leasing at 53.2%. The sector with the most of these businesses, professional and technical services at 4,075,717, sits at 59.4%. The Data Share of a sector’s no-employee businesses taking in under $25,000, 2023 Educational services83.3%Arts and recreation76.5%Administrative and waste services74.1%Accommodation and food services71.2%Retail trade68.0%Information67.1%Health care and social assistance64.0%Transportation and warehousing62.8%Other services62.3%Manufacturing60.4%Professional and technical services59.4%Agriculture and forestry58.7%Utilities56.8%Finance and insurance51.3%Mining and oil and gas51.0%Wholesale trade49.9%Construction48.1%Real estate and leasing35.6% Orange is the share below the line, as everywhere in this piece. All 18 sectors of the no-employee economy, on a full 0-100 axis. The national figure is 60.6%. Census publishes no two-digit total for manufacturing, retail or transportation in this file, so those three are summed here from their three-digit parts; the eighteen sectors add back to 30,427,808 exactly. U.S. Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics 2023, United States file (nonemp23us), retrieved 28 September 2026. Businesses with no paid employees, by receipts-size class; size-class definitions from the Census US record layout. Receipts are published for the total only — every size class withholds them — so band figures are counts of businesses. Three limits. **Receipts are not profit** — this is the money that came in, before costs, so a business at $40,000 of receipts is not a business with $40,000 in the owner’s pocket, and the file publishes nothing about what is left. **Not every one of these is somebody’s living**: the file counts any business filing a return with no payroll, which includes side businesses, rental activity and work done alongside a job, so the low end holds both a struggling full-time business and a deliberately part-time one, and nothing here separates them. And **the tail is thin but real** — 117,060 of these businesses took in a million or more with nobody on the payroll, which is 0.38% of them. The Data Where the numbers land $57,611 average annual receipts across all 30.4 million businesses with no employees 60.6% of businesses with no employees took in under $25,000 for the year 23.2% of them took in under $5,000 — nearly one in four 13.2% of them reached $100,000 or more in receipts U.S. Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics 2023, United States file. Businesses with no paid employees; receipts are gross receipts, not profit. ## Frequently Asked Questions How much does the average business with no employees make? The Census Bureau's Nonemployer Statistics for 2023 count 30,427,808 American businesses with no paid employees and $1.75 trillion in combined receipts, an average of $57,611. That average is not typical: at least 75.5% of these businesses took in less than it, and the median sits in the $10,000 to $24,999 band. These are gross receipts, not profit. What is a typical income for a solo business? Measured by receipts, the middle of this population is between $10,000 and $25,000 a year. 60.6% of businesses with no employees took in under $25,000 in 2023 and 75.5% took in under $50,000. Profit is lower than receipts by whatever the business spends, and this file does not publish costs, so it does not say what any of them earned. How many solo businesses make over $100,000? 13.2% of them — 4,030,422 businesses — took in $100,000 or more in receipts in 2023. 117,060 took in $1 million or more and 905 took in $5 million or more, all with nobody on the payroll. Is this just delivery and ride-hailing drivers? No. The share taking in under $25,000 is above half in 15 of the 18 sectors, and runs from 35.6% in real estate and leasing to 83.3% in educational services. Transportation and warehousing, which holds the delivery and ride-hailing work, sits at 62.8% — close to the national 60.6% rather than far below it. At the $50,000 line every one of the 18 sectors is a majority, the lowest being real estate and leasing at 53.2%. Why does this count so many more businesses than other figures? Because most American businesses have no employees. This file counts the 30,427,808 with no payroll; the Census Bureau's employer files count about 6.4 million with one. Figures about “small business” usually mean one group or the other, rarely both, and the two populations differ by a factor of about five in number and enormously in scale. Keep reading - [Half of America’s Employer Businesses Sell Under $500,000 a Year. They Average Two People.](https://lonelyentrepreneur.com/founder-the-two-person-majority/) - [In Real Estate, 1.2% of Workplaces Hold 32.7% of the Jobs. In Manufacturing, 16.7% Hold 80.2%.](https://lonelyentrepreneur.com/founder-who-holds-the-jobs-in-your-trade/) - [More Than a Third of the New Solo Businesses of the Last Decade Drive or Deliver](https://lonelyentrepreneur.com/founder-new-solo-businesses-deliver/) Part of the entrepreneurial struggle: [Resilience](https://lonelyentrepreneur.com/entrepreneur-struggle/resilience/) ![The Lonely Entrepreneur](https://lonelyentrepreneur.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/TLE_Logo_mobile-490W-26-26.png) Published by **The Lonely Entrepreneur** — the community and coaching platform for entrepreneurs who are building alone. [lonelyentrepreneur.com](https://lonelyentrepreneur.com/) This article is for educational purposes and is not a substitute for professional financial or legal advice.