Self-employment method
Business Service Centers
17,773 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 17,773 people who filed under this code in 2022, 43.29% 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 = 17,773 · 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 | 4,714 | 26.5% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 2,980 | 16.8% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 4,706 | 26.5% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 2,433 | 13.7% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 1,513 | 8.5% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 994 | 5.6% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 355 | 2.0% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 53 | 0.3% |
| $1,000,000 to $2,499,999 | 25 | 0.1% |
Who this suits
At the midpoint this work grossed $13,801 for the year — $1,150 a month in revenue. That is a real second income and a long way short of a first one, and Census cannot tell you which of those the typical filer intended.
At 17,773 filers this is a real but thin national population. There is no established price for Business Service Centers at this scale, which cuts both ways: nothing anchors you low and nothing anchors you high.
8.0% of filers grossed $100,000 or more. That is a substantial upper tier by the standards of this dataset — the difference between a full operation and an occasional one is visible in the distribution rather than only in the anecdotes.
Administrative and support services suit people who can win recurring contracts rather than one-off jobs, because the whole economics turn on route density and repeat work.
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
The top quarter of Business Service Centers earns 7.3x the bottom quarter — under $4,713 against over $34,554, a spread of $29,841. Distributions this stretched are usually two different jobs sharing one label, and any average across them means little.
The bottom quarter of Business Service Centers earns under $4,713 — $45,307 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 on one-off jobs. Without recurring contracts the acquisition cost eats the margin every time.
43.3% of 17,773 filers in 2022 took under $10,000 across the entire year: 7,693 people. Close to half of everyone in Business Service Centers is in that band, and gross receipts is the generous way of counting it.
Take it as a floor, not an estimate. The $10,000 threshold is measured on money received, before materials, rent, fuel, insurance and self-employment tax, so the true share of filers who ended the year with no income is higher than the figure shown — we simply cannot say how much higher.
What the spread tells you
At 7.3x, the gap between $4,713 and $34,554 is the shape of a field with a small, well-paid top. $13,801 is real and it is not a forecast — the people quoting the upper end at you are describing a minority.
Put in money rather than ratios: $4,713 at the 25th percentile, $13,801 at the midpoint, $34,554 at the 75th. $29,841 separates the quarter of Business Service Centers at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
The 75th percentile is $34,554. Reaching it from the $13,801 midpoint is $20,753 a year; reaching it from the $4,713 that the bottom quarter of Business Service Centers earn is $29,841.
From $13,801 the drop to $4,713 is $9,088 and the climb to $34,554 is $20,753. When the upper half of the range is that much longer, the average is pulled well above the median — which is exactly why this site publishes the median.
Converted to a 2,080-hour year, the receipts run $2.26 an hour at the 25th percentile, $6.63 at the midpoint and $16.61 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 Business Service Centers: 4,714 filers under $5,000, 2,980 between $5,000 and $9,999, 4,706 between $10,000 and $24,999, 1,427 above $100,000 and 433 above $250,000.
What these figures are, and what they are not
Every figure above is GROSS RECEIPTS, before expenses — money that arrived before rent, materials, fuel, insurance and self-employment tax. The $13,801 midpoint for Business Service Centers is not take-home pay and is not comparable to a $13,801 salary.
Treat the per-hour figure as a conversion. It assumes a flat full-time year against $13,801 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