Self-employment method
Building Inspection Services
23,696 people filed as a nonemployer business under this industry code in 2022 — no payroll, no employees, just them. These are gross receipts reported to the IRS, before any expense is taken out.
Median GROSS RECEIPTS for the year — money in, before rent, materials, fuel, insurance or tax. This is not take-home pay.
Share who grossed under $10,000 for the whole year — before expenses.
The middle half, in gross receipts. A quarter of filers took less than the lower figure.
Source: US Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics 2022 · view
How often it does not work out
Of the 23,696 people who filed under this code in 2022, 34.72% grossed under $10,000 for the entire year — before a single expense was deducted.
That is a floor, not an estimate. Census publishes GROSS RECEIPTS, not net income. Everyone inside that share earned less than the figure suggests once rent, materials, mileage, insurance and self-employment tax came out — and filers who grossed well above the threshold may still have netted nothing. The true share of people who earn nothing meaningful from this is higher than the number above, never lower.
Denominator: establishments_total = 23,696 · US Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics 2022 · view
Every filer, by what they grossed
The full distribution Census publishes. The median above is interpolated inside the band that holds the 50th percentile.
| Gross receipts for the year | Filers | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Under $5,000 | 4,920 | 20.8% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 3,307 | 14.0% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 5,111 | 21.6% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 4,165 | 17.6% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 3,723 | 15.7% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 2,062 | 8.7% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 313 | 1.3% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 75 | 0.3% |
| $1,000,000 to $2,499,999 | 20 | 0.1% |
Who this suits
The median filer grossed $20,627, or $1,718 a month before expenses. That is an operating business at part-time scale: enough revenue to be worth running properly, not enough to be the only thing in the household.
23,696 people filed under this code, almost none of whom appear in any employment statistic. Building Inspection Services is part of the economy salary surveys simply do not see.
2,464 filers cleared $100,000, which is 10.4% of everyone under this code. A share that size means Building Inspection Services supports a genuine professional tier, and the question becomes what puts someone in it.
Independent professional work suits people who can carry the whole business — delivery, sales, admin and collections — because with no employees all four are one person’s week.
There is no training requirement to file under this code — which is precisely why so many people appear in the bottom bands. Entry being free is not the same as the work being viable.
Who should not do this
8.2x between the quarters — $6,518 against $53,613, or $3,924 a month. This is the shape of a field where a minority does very well and the summary statistics quietly borrow their success.
The bottom quarter of Building Inspection Services earns under $6,518 — $43,502 below the $50,020 a typical American job pays. Entering at the bottom and waiting is a live risk here, not a theoretical one, and some people never leave that quarter.
Do not start this if you dislike selling. Skill is not the constraint in this subsector — client acquisition is, and it never stops being.
8,227 filers out of 23,696 — 34.7% — reported under $10,000 in gross receipts in 2022. At that share the bottom band is not a warning about beginners; it is a description of a large part of the field.
That share is a floor, not an estimate: $10,000 is revenue, not earnings. Everyone counted inside it kept less than $10,000, and an unknown number of the filers above it also finished the year with nothing after costs.
What the spread tells you
From $6,518 to $53,613 is 8.2x — the shape of a field where a minority captures most of the money. The midpoint of $20,627 is arithmetic, not a forecast, and treating it as one is the standard mistake here.
In cash terms the middle half of Building Inspection Services runs $6,518 to $53,613 — $47,095 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $20,627.
The 75th percentile is $53,613. Reaching it from the $20,627 midpoint is $32,986 a year; reaching it from the $6,518 that the bottom quarter of Building Inspection Services earn is $47,095.
The upper half of the middle range — $20,627 to $53,613, or $32,986 — is far longer than the lower half at $14,109. In a shape like this an average would flatter Building Inspection Services considerably, and would describe nobody.
Converted to a 2,080-hour year, the receipts run $3.13 an hour at the 25th percentile, $9.91 at the midpoint and $25.77 at the 75th. Read them as revenue per hour worked; the equivalent wage is lower by whatever this work costs to do.
Straight from the Census bands for Building Inspection Services: 4,920 filers under $5,000, 3,307 between $5,000 and $9,999, 5,111 between $10,000 and $24,999, 2,470 above $100,000 and 408 above $250,000.
What these figures are, and what they are not
Read every figure here as GROSS RECEIPTS rather than income. $20,627 is turnover — the money that passed through Building Inspection Services before expenses. What is left after costs is a different and much smaller number that this dataset does not publish.
Treat the per-hour figure as a conversion. It assumes a flat full-time year against $20,627 because we have no verified record of unpaid hours or out-of-pocket costs for this work, and we would rather convert honestly than adjust invented ones.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else