How Much Do Food Trucks Make? Revenue, Profit Margin and Owner Pay from Census and IRS Data (2026)

According to the US Census Bureau, half of the food trucks with employees that ran all year took in less than $250,000, and the average across every mobile food business with staff was about $297,000. What the owner keeps is much smaller. IRS data puts the profit margin across food service sole proprietors at about 3.4%, and 42% of them lost money.

Most articles on this question repeat "$250,000 to $500,000 a year" without a primary source. This page uses the government's own counts instead: the 2022 Economic Census for revenue and the IRS's 2023 sole proprietorship statistics for profit. It also adds the fixed costs you can price before your first service, by city.

How much food trucks make: what the Census counted

The best official revenue figure for food trucks comes from the Economic Census, which the US Census Bureau runs every five years for every employer business in the country. Food trucks fall under NAICS 722330, Mobile Food Services. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) is the federal coding scheme for industries, and 722330 covers meals and snacks served from motorized vehicles or carts: food trucks, ice cream trucks, coffee carts and mobile canteens.

The 2022 Economic Census counted:

One limit matters more than any other: the Economic Census counts only businesses with paid employees. An owner who runs the truck alone, or with unpaid family, has no payroll and isn't in these numbers. Read the Census figures as a picture of trucks large enough to have a payroll, which is the stage most owners are working toward.

Food truck revenue by size: the distribution

The averages hide how spread out food truck revenue is. The Census Bureau's revenue-size table breaks down the 5,326 establishments that operated all of 2022:

*The Census withholds the count in the top band for confidentiality. It's the 5,326 total minus the other bands.

Three things stand out:

1. The middle sits at about $250,000. The cumulative share crosses 50% right at the top of the $100,000–$249,999 band. That's the closest the official data gets to a median for year-round trucks with staff.
2. The average is pulled up by a few big operators. The 487 establishments grossing $1 million or more took in about 40% of the year-round revenue. That's why the average ($436,000) is so far above the middle.
3. The popular "$250,000–$500,000" range describes about one truck in four. Half of year-round employer trucks are below it. If you're building a business plan, start from the distribution rather than the range.

How much profit a food truck makes

A food truck's profit margin is net profit divided by revenue: what's left after food, labor, fuel, commissary, insurance, permits and every other cost, as a share of sales. No federal agency publishes a margin for food trucks alone. The closest official figure comes from the Internal Revenue Service.

A food truck owned by one person usually files as a sole proprietorship on Schedule C, using business code 722300, special food services, per the Schedule C instructions. The IRS's Statistics of Income division groups that code with restaurants and bars. Its 2023 sole proprietorship tables (published March 2026) show:

The group includes restaurants and bars as well as trucks, so treat this as a benchmark and not a food-truck-only figure. Still, it's the only margin figure here that comes from actual tax returns. In that IRS group, the profitable returns earned low double digits and 42% reported a loss.

On the "what percent of food trucks fail" question: no federal agency publishes a failure rate for food trucks. The Census does show that 4,829 of the 10,155 employer mobile food establishments, almost half, did not operate for the whole of 2022. That number mixes trucks that opened mid-year, closed, or were sold. It shows how much the industry turns over, but it isn't a failure rate.

How much food truck owners make

A sole proprietor's pay is the business's net profit. There's no salary line. Whatever's left after costs is the owner's income, and self-employment tax and income tax still come out of it. That's why the "food truck owner salary" figures you see quoted are hard to verify.

In the IRS's 2023 data, profitable food service and drinking place sole proprietors averaged about $21,300 in net income. Including the 42% that lost money, the average across all returns was about $4,000. Those are averages for small operators who file Schedule C. A year-round truck grossing $250,000 or more is in a different position, but its owner still keeps only what the margin allows.

A faster way to estimate your own pay: revenue × your net margin. At the IRS profitable-group margin of 13.6%, a truck grossing $250,000 leaves the owner about $34,000 before tax. At 3.4%, it leaves $8,500. Your own costs decide which end you're closer to.

Per day and per month: do the math with your own days

No official source publishes daily food truck revenue, because operating days vary so much by climate, season and how many events you book. Convert the annual figures yourself:

Count real service days, not calendar days. Rained-out events, maintenance days, commissary prep days and the slow weeks after your main season all come out of the denominator.

The costs you can price before you open

Most food truck costs depend on your menu and your volume. Three lines are knowable in advance, and they set the floor your revenue has to clear.

Labor. Mobile food businesses with employees spent 23.4% of revenue on payroll in 2022 ($705 million of $3.02 billion, Census). That excludes the owner's own pay. Labor plus cost of goods sold (your food and packaging) is called prime cost, the standard restaurant measure of the two costs you can most directly control. For the food half, see how to calculate food cost.

Insurance. Insureon's medians for its food truck customers are $440 a year for general liability and $2,509 a year for commercial auto, about $2,950 together (seen 1 October 2026). Our food truck insurance guide covers what cities require.

Permits, commissary and compliance. In AutoFill PDFs' verified permit data for 47 US cities (updated September 2026), first-year regulatory cost (permits, commissary rent and insurance, excluding the truck) runs:

In expensive cities, commissary rent is what drives the total. Our Los Angeles record puts commissary at $800–$2,000 a month against permit fees that are, in its words, minor. At the approximate Census median of $250,000 in revenue, the median-city range of $3,000–$12,000 is 1.2% to 4.8% of sales before you've bought any food. Look up your own city in the permit browser, or add up several cities with the permit checklist if you plan to work across city lines.

Per-event costs come on top: many festivals and counties charge a separate temporary food permit for each event, plus the organiser's own vendor fee.

The market is growing, but so is the competition

The 2017 Economic Census counted 5,211 employer mobile food establishments with $1.18 billion in revenue. By 2022 that was 10,155 establishments and $3.02 billion. Total revenue grew about 2.6 times (in current dollars, not adjusted for inflation), but the number of businesses nearly doubled. Average revenue per establishment rose from about $226,000 to about $297,000. More customers are buying from trucks, and more trucks are competing for the same lots, breweries and festival slots.

In practice, revenue growth for a working truck usually comes from booking more and better events: festivals, farmers markets, private catering, recurring office-park stops. Every one of those comes with an application, a certificate of insurance and often a permit.

Where the paperwork fits

Moving from the bottom revenue band to the middle usually means more service days, and on a truck that mostly means more events. Each event brings another vendor application, another certificate of insurance naming the organiser, and sometimes another temporary permit. In a busy season that adds up to dozens of forms asking for the same business details again.

Sources: US Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census: Accommodation and Food Services summary statistics (EC2272BASIC) · US Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census: revenue size of establishments (EC2200SIZEREVEST) · US Census Bureau, 2017 Economic Census: Accommodation and Food Services summary statistics (EC1772BASIC) · IRS Statistics of Income: Nonfarm sole proprietorship statistics, Table 1, tax year 2023 (published March 2026) · IRS: Instructions for Schedule C, principal business codes · Insureon: Food truck insurance costs · AutoFill PDFs verified permit data, 47 US cities (updated September 2026). All accessed 1 October 2026. Census figures are for NAICS 722330 and count only businesses with paid employees. IRS figures cover all food service and drinking place sole proprietors, not food trucks alone. Averages and shares on this page are calculated from those published totals.