Average Manufacturing Plant Size by State: 2026 Data Report

Key Findings

California has the widest manufacturing footprint, with 35,936 establishments and 1,160,856 employees. Texas ranks second in establishment count with 20,781 locations, while Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Illinois anchor the dense industrial belt. Those counts matter to sellers because establishment count is closer to the number of potential accounts than statewide employment is.

The employment ranking tells a different story. After California and Texas, Ohio supports 686,189 manufacturing jobs, followed by Michigan at 595,273 and Pennsylvania at 560,912. A state can have fewer plants but larger operations, so account density and labor concentration should be treated as separate measures.

California also leads annual payroll at $103.37 billion. Texas follows at $62.85 billion, then Ohio at $44.92 billion. Payroll reflects both headcount and compensation mix. It should not be read as a pure wage ranking without accounting for industry composition and hours worked.

Manufacturing Establishments, Employment, and Payroll by State

The table uses the Census Bureau's 2022 County Business Patterns state file, released in 2024. Payroll is converted from the source file's thousands of dollars into full dollars for the per-worker calculation. Average establishment size equals employment divided by establishments. Payroll per employee is an analytical ratio, not the average wage, because payroll can include bonuses and other taxable compensation.

States With the Most Manufacturing Establishments

The top ten states hold 53.6% of U.S. manufacturing establishments, based on County Business Patterns. This ranking favors broad, diverse industrial ecosystems with thousands of small and midsize shops, not only states with a few giant plants.

California alone contains 12.6% of the national establishment total. Its lead comes from scale and sector variety, including food processing, electronics, aerospace, fabricated metal, apparel, and medical products. Texas accounts for 7.3%. Florida and New York rank high by location count even though they sit lower in manufacturing employment, a sign that their average operation is smaller.

States With the Most Manufacturing Employees

Employment highlights the states where production work is most concentrated. The top ten account for 51.4% of national manufacturing employment in the Census data.

Indiana stands out for plant scale. Its 527,426 workers across 7,964 establishments work out to 66.2 employees per location, well above California's 32.3. Arkansas, Mississippi, Kentucky, South Carolina, and Iowa also show relatively large average establishments. These patterns often reflect production mixes built around transportation equipment, food processing, chemicals, and other plant-intensive industries.

Manufacturing Payroll by State

Annual payroll is a useful measure of the spending power and technical intensity tied to a state's manufacturing workforce. The ten largest state payrolls total $447.8 billion, according to the source file.

The ratio is best used as a market signal. Massachusetts records about $87,770 in payroll per employee, influenced by its concentration of biopharmaceutical, medical device, electronics, and advanced manufacturing operations. California is close to $89,050. States with more labor-intensive production generally report lower payroll per employee.

How to Use This State Manufacturing Data

Territory planning

Establishment count is a sound first pass for territory capacity. A rep covering California faces a pool of 35,936 manufacturing locations, more than the combined totals of many regions. Narrow that market by NAICS code, employee band, process, certification, and buying trigger before assigning accounts.

Supplier and site research

High employment plus high average plant size can indicate deep maintenance, automation, safety, logistics, and production-service demand. High establishment count with smaller average facilities can point toward fragmented markets where distributors and local search visibility carry more weight.

Market normalization

Raw lead totals are misleading across unequal markets. Divide leads by establishment count to calculate market penetration. Divide won accounts by establishments in the target size and sector bands for a cleaner coverage measure. Payroll can provide another screen for higher-value technical markets, but it should not replace facility-level qualification.

Methodology and Definitions

County Business Patterns is an annual Census Bureau program built from business establishment data. This report uses the 2022 state file and adds the published totals for NAICS 31, 32, and 33. Those sectors cover food, beverage, textiles, wood, paper, printing, petroleum and coal, chemicals, plastics and rubber, nonmetallic minerals, primary metal, fabricated metal, machinery, computers and electronics, electrical equipment, transportation equipment, furniture, and miscellaneous manufacturing.

An establishment is a single physical location where business is conducted. One company can operate many establishments, so these figures are location counts rather than company counts. Employment is the mid-March number reported in the CBP file. Annual payroll covers the calendar year and is reported by Census in thousands of dollars.

The report excludes self-employed people, most government manufacturing activity, and operations without paid employees. Values can differ from BLS employment series because the programs use different reference periods, coverage rules, and administrative inputs. Derived ratios are rounded, and totals include the District of Columbia unless a section specifically says 50 states.

Sources

1. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns program, definitions, coverage, and annual releases.
2. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns datasets, 2022 state file used for every table.
3. U.S. Census Bureau, CBP methodology, collection, editing, disclosure, and publication methods.
4. U.S. Census Bureau, North American Industry Classification System, manufacturing sector definitions.
5. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 CBP state data download, machine-readable source file.