Analysis
NAICS 5412 is the 2022 industry group for accounting, tax preparation, bookkeeping, and payroll services, part of 541 (Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services).
It has only one more detailed code, 54121, which covers exactly the same activities; the definition, index entries and statistics are on that page.
County Business Patterns counts 137,069 US establishments in this code in 2023, employing 1,297,995 people at an average annual payroll of $76,876 per employee (64th percentile of national industries). 70% of the establishments have fewer than five employees, which marks it as a small-business industry.
Between 2018 and 2023 the number of establishments grew 2% and employment rose 13%. The 2018 count used NAICS 2017, so part of a large move can come from codes being redefined rather than from businesses opening or closing.
By establishments it ranks 4th of the 9 codes at this level within Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services, with 13.9% of them.