Self-employment method
Commercial and Industrial Machinery and Equipment Rental and Leasing
35,689 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 35,689 people who filed under this code in 2022, 20.32% 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 = 35,689 · 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 | 3,836 | 10.7% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 3,415 | 9.6% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 6,168 | 17.3% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 5,190 | 14.5% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 5,357 | 15.0% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 5,924 | 16.6% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 3,066 | 8.6% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 1,816 | 5.1% |
| $1,000,000 to $2,499,999 | 917 | 2.6% |
Who this suits
$46,317 in median gross receipts — $3,859 a month — is a strong figure for this dataset. Revenue at that level survives a normal cost base, which is not true of most codes on this site.
35,689 filings sit behind this code — a workforce the size of a mid-sized occupation that no payroll survey counts, because none of it runs through a payroll.
11,705 filers, 32.8% of the total, took $100,000 or more in receipts. Read the size of that group as evidence about turnover in Commercial and Industrial Machinery and Equipment Rental and Leasing rather than about income: the costs scale with it.
Independent rental and leasing suits people who can finance an asset and keep it utilised, because idle equipment costs exactly as much as working equipment.
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
12.2x between the quarters — $14,064 against $170,917, or $13,071 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 Commercial and Industrial Machinery and Equipment Rental and Leasing earns under $14,064 — $35,956 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 with financed assets and no utilisation plan; idle equipment still makes its payment.
Of the 35,689 people who filed as Commercial and Industrial Machinery and Equipment Rental and Leasing in 2022, 20.3% — about 7,252 of them — grossed under $10,000 for the entire year, before a single expense was deducted. That is the gentlest end of this dataset and it is still roughly one filer in four.
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
At 12.2x, the gap between $14,064 and $170,917 is the shape of a field with a small, well-paid top. $46,317 is real and it is not a forecast — the people quoting the upper end at you are describing a minority.
The middle half of this field earns between $14,064 and $170,917. That is $156,853 of range, with $46,317 sitting inside it as the point half the field is above and half below.
Getting to $170,917, the 75th percentile, is worth $124,600 a year more than the $46,317 midpoint and $156,853 more than the $14,064 a quarter of Commercial and Industrial Machinery and Equipment Rental and Leasing settle for.
The top quarter of Commercial and Industrial Machinery and Equipment Rental and Leasing begins $124,600 above the $46,317 midpoint, while the bottom quarter starts only $32,253 below it. A range stretched that far in one direction is the signature of a field where a small group earns a great deal more than the middle does.
Per hour of a full-time year, the middle of Commercial and Industrial Machinery and Equipment Rental and Leasing takes $22.26 in revenue — $6.76 at the bottom quarter and $82.17 at the top. Costs have not been deducted from any of those figures, so none of them is an hourly wage.
Counted straight off the return: 3,836 filers grossed under $5,000, 3,415 took $5,000 to $9,999, 6,168 took $10,000 to $24,999, 11,723 cleared $100,000 and 5,799 cleared $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 $46,317 midpoint for Commercial and Industrial Machinery and Equipment Rental and Leasing is not take-home pay and is not comparable to a $46,317 salary.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Commercial and Industrial Machinery and Equipment Rental and Leasing, the hourly figure is $46,317 over a 2,080-hour year — a unit conversion, not an adjustment.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else