SIC code for a gas station: 5541, and the NAICS codes 457110 and 457120

This page is for station owners, convenience store operators and fuel jobbers filling in an industry code for a lender, an insurer, a fuel supply contract, a state license or SAM.gov, and for sellers building lists of gas stations.

The SIC code: 5541

SIC 5541, Gasoline Service Stations, sits in Industry Group 554 of Major Group 55, Automotive Dealers and Gasoline Service Stations. The 1987 manual describes it as "gasoline service stations primarily engaged in selling gasoline and lubricating oils," which "frequently sell other merchandise, such as tires, batteries, and other automobile parts, or perform minor repair work." Its examples include filling stations, marine service stations and truck stops.

The manual adds the rule that matters most for modern stations: gasoline stations combined with grocery stores, convenience stores or carwashes "are classified according to the primary activity." A convenience store with pumps that earned more from merchandise than fuel was SIC 5411, Grocery Stores, not 5541. The Census concordance confirms both routes: 5541 maps to 457110 and 457120, and the "convenience store with gas" part of 5411 maps to 457110.

The SEC doesn't use 5541. Public fuel retailers file under its group code 5500, Retail-Auto Dealers and Gasoline Stations, or 5412, Retail-Convenience Stores.

The NAICS codes

The Census definition of the industry group says these establishments "have specialized equipment for storing and dispensing automotive fuels." That's the test: pumps and tanks make a store a gas station. Employees per establishment is our calculation from County Business Patterns.

How to choose: the edge cases

A site with a car wash, a quick-service restaurant counter or repair bays stays in 457110 or 457120 as long as fuel and the store together are the main business. If you also repair cars, see the auto repair code page; for washes, the car wash code page.

The 2022 change: 447 became 457

NAICS 2022 moved gas stations into a new subsector, 457 Gasoline Stations and Fuel Dealers. 447110 became 457110, 447190 became 457120, and heating oil and propane dealers moved from 454310 to 457210. The definitions carried over. County Business Patterns 2023 still reports these industries under their 2017 numbers, which is why the counts on this page are labeled 457 but were published as 447. Update any supply contract, lender file or SAM.gov profile that still shows a 447 code.

How many gas stations there are

County Business Patterns 2023 counts 109,174 gas station establishments with paid employees: 96,002 with convenience stores and 13,172 without. Together they employ 1,016,960 people with $29.7 billion in annual payroll.

Payroll per employee is our calculation. The top states for stations with stores are Texas (9,720), California (6,766), Florida (5,539), Georgia (4,644) and North Carolina (4,001). For other stations they're California (1,350), New Jersey (1,185), Texas (950), New York (859) and Massachusetts (532).

CBP counts each station with paid employees as one establishment, so a chain with 500 sites counts 500 times, and owner-run stations with no employees aren't counted.

SBA size standards

From SBA's table effective 17 March 2023, still current in the eCFR on 28 October 2026:

Fuel makes receipts large relative to profit, so a station group can outgrow a receipts standard faster than its staff suggests. Receipts exclude sales taxes collected from customers and remitted, but not taxes levied on the business itself.

Where the code is used, and what a wrong one costs

• Tax returns. Schedule C and Form 1120 both use 457100, Gasoline stations (including convenience stores with gas).
• Lenders and insurers. A store with pumps filed as a convenience retailer (445131) misdescribes the underground tanks an underwriter has to price, and a 447 code marks the file as out of date.

Finding gas stations by code

Public operators are few. From each company's latest 10-K:

EDGAR's list for SIC 5500 mixes fuel retailers with car dealers, so filter it by hand. For the full universe of sites, the EPA's UST Finder maps active and closed underground storage tank facilities from state data (as of 2018 to 2019 for states) and can export them; state tank registries hold more current records. Bebop finds operators behind the sites, such as independent chains with 10 to 50 stores in one region.

Worked example

Illustrative example. The company and its figures are invented; the rules and standards are SBA's and the Census Bureau's.

Prairie Fuel Co. (prairiefuel.example) runs two convenience stores with pumps and one truck stop. Last year the stores earned $6.8 million from fuel and $2.4 million from merchandise; the truck stop earned $4.1 million: $13.3 million in all.

1. NAICS. The stores are 457110 whatever their fuel share, and earn $9.2 million (69.2%), so the company's primary code is 457110, with 457120 for the truck stop.
2. SIC. Fuel outsells merchandise at both stores, so each is 5541; if a store's merchandise ever outsold its fuel, that location would be SIC 5411 under the manual's primary-activity rule.
3. Size. Five-year average receipts of $12.1 million are about a third of the $36.5 million standard for 457110, and under the $33.5 million standard for 457120, so Prairie Fuel is small under both.

Next step: if your sites also repair vehicles, check the codes on the NAICS code for auto repair page.