Highest Revenue U.S. Industries

Bigger is Better

Insurance carriers lead this ranking of U.S. industry groups, with about $2.77 trillion in 2022 revenue. Petroleum wholesalers and automobile dealers follow. These figures show where businesses already collect large amounts of money.

For a founder, the useful question is who you could serve within those markets. A hospital might need billing help. A distributor might need inventory software. You do not need to build the largest company in the industry to find a useful business idea.

This list uses 2022 Census estimates for all revenue figures. It is a historical benchmark, not a claim about 2026 sales. The separate growth column contains selected government forecasts for 2025 through 2035.

Highest Revenue U.S. Industries Ranked

The table covers the United States and ranks 30 eligible industry groups in the 2022 Economic Census. Each group uses the same four-digit classification level. The code beside each name lets you find the exact category in the source.

Revenue figures are Census estimates of sales, shipments, or revenue, depending on the industry. They are rounded to the nearest $0.1 billion and include the effect of prices. Click any dollar figure to open the source table.

Forecast growth means annual growth in inflation-adjusted economic output. It is not a revenue or jobs forecast. All nine rates below are BLS projections for 2025-2035. N/A means no matching published output forecast is shown, not zero growth.

Top 30 U.S. Industries by Size

Rank	Industry	NAICS	Revenue
1	Insurance carriers	5241	$2,774.4B
2	Petroleum and petroleum product wholesalers	4247	$1,933.6B
3	Automobile dealers	4411	$1,345.9B
4	Grocery and related product wholesalers	4244	$1,298.7B
5	Drug and drug sundry wholesalers	4242	$1,280.9B
6	General medical and surgical hospitals	6221	$1,270.0B
7	Warehouse clubs, supercenters, and other general merchandise retailers	4552	$1,228.3B
8	Motor vehicle and parts wholesalers	4231	$1,072.3B
9	Appliance, electrical, and electronic goods wholesalers	4236	$895.2B
10	Petroleum and coal product manufacturing	3241	$883.3B
11	Grocery and convenience retailers	4451	$855.9B
12	Restaurants and other eating places	7225	$800.1B
13	Professional and commercial equipment wholesalers	4234	$766.5B
14	Machinery, equipment, and supplies wholesalers	4238	$725.6B
15	Banks, credit unions, and other depository lenders	5221	$723.3B
16	Gasoline stations	4571	$721.7B
17	Nondepository lenders	5222	$716.9B
18	Health and personal care retailers	4561	$654.6B
19	Wired and wireless telecom carriers, except satellite	5171	$640.8B
20	Physician offices	6211	$640.4B
21	Nonresidential building construction	2362	$621.8B
22	Residential building construction	2361	$601.4B
23	Computer systems design and related services	5415	$600.6B
24	Building equipment contractors	2382	$589.3B
25	Electric power generation, transmission, and distribution	2211	$563.3B
26	Employment services	5613	$557.9B
27	Oil and gas extraction	2111	$532.9B
28	Insurance agencies, brokerages, and related services	5242	$495.4B
29	Software publishers	5132	$492.9B
30	Building material and supplies dealers	4441	$481.9B

Source: Revenue figures come from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2022 Economic Census.

How to Use This List

Start with a customer you could reach. Then test whether you can solve a problem at a price that leaves a profit.

Pick a narrow customer group. Choose a type of buyer, a location, and a need. For example, research inventory errors at regional parts distributors or missed appointments at independent medical practices. These are ideas to test, not proven opportunities.
Find buyers and ask what they pay to fix. Use company websites, trade directories, and local business groups to build a prospect list. Ask who chooses vendors, what the current solution costs, and what would make them switch.
Compare margins. Review small business profit margins by industry, then build your own cost estimate. Include labor, materials, shipping, software, sales costs, and a fair wage for your work. A large industry can still leave owners with little profit.
Price the startup. Get quotes for equipment, permits, insurance, inventory, and any space you need. Add enough cash to cover the wait between paying your bills and collecting from customers.
Check competition and test demand. Look at current vendors, customer reviews, contracts, and switching costs. Try to sell a small paid project before making a large investment.

If you need a starting point, compare the most common small businesses in the US. Then calculate your contribution margin to see how much each sale leaves to cover fixed costs and profit.

What the Growth Forecasts Tell You

The BLS rates describe expected changes in the amount of goods and services produced after removing price changes. They give you another way to judge demand, but they do not predict the sales of a new business.

For example, software publishers have a projected 4.0% annual increase in real output from 2025 to 2035. Computer systems design has a 3.4% forecast for the same period. These estimates do not mean every software company or IT consultant will grow at those rates.

Do not apply these rates to the 2022 revenue column to create a future revenue total. The dates and measures differ. Revenue can also rise because prices increase, while output growth removes that effect.

Why Hospitals Appear Only Once

General medical and surgical hospitals are part of the broader hospital sector. Listing both categories as separate markets would count much of the same activity twice.

This ranking includes general medical and surgical hospitals, code 6221, once. It does not add the broader hospital total. Psychiatric hospitals and other specialty hospitals have their own codes and fall outside this top 30.

Hospital outpatient services can be included in a hospital establishment. Separately classified outpatient care centers use code 6214. They are not interchangeable markets. The Census industry definitions explain this distinction.

How the Ranking Was Built

I used one reporting year and one level of NAICS industry codes to avoid mixing broad sectors with their smaller parts. The list ranks published four-digit groups by revenue within the Census coverage, with one exclusion explained below.

The Census methodology covers establishments with paid employees in the 50 states, Washington, DC, and associated offshore areas. Businesses without paid employees are outside this table. Most government operations are excluded, with exceptions such as hospitals. Schools, most farming, and some other activities are also outside the coverage.

Wholesale trade agents and brokers, code 4251, are excluded. Their reported sales can include the gross value of deals they arrange. That is different from the commission revenue they keep. Including it as broker revenue would make the comparison misleading.

The source combines business responses with administrative records and estimates for missing data. These figures are statistical estimates, not a collection of audited company statements. Manufacturing uses shipment values, so the ranking is a guide to business activity rather than a uniform accounting measure.

Do not add the rows to estimate GDP or a single market you could sell into. Goods can appear in a manufacturer’s shipments, a wholesaler’s sales, and a retailer’s sales. Insurance payments can also fund revenue recorded by health providers. Different industries can touch the same dollar.

Use the ranking to choose where to investigate. Your next step is to find a reachable buyer, a problem they will pay to fix, and costs that leave enough profit to make the work worthwhile.