Religious Organizations (U.S.) — NAICS 813110

An investor's primer. NAICS = North American Industry Classification System, the standard code the U.S. government uses to group businesses.

1. Overview

NAICS 813110 covers the core operations of churches, temples, mosques, synagogues, monasteries, and the denominational bodies that administer or promote an organized religion.[3] It is one of the largest employers in the country that almost no one can invest in directly: every establishment in it is a tax-exempt nonprofit or house of worship — no shares, no profit distribution, no public listing.

Why an investor should still care. Religion is a roughly $147-billion-a-year donation economy[5] sitting on an estimated ~$1 trillion of real estate equity,[17] and it anchors a much larger for-profit supply chain — giving-and-payments software, media, publishing, construction, insurance, and specialty lending — that is investable. As congregations age, shrink, merge, and close, that supply chain is consolidating and the real estate is changing hands. The useful investment question here is not "how fast is industry revenue growing?" but "who profits when congregations try to retain members, raise recurring giving, cut administrative cost, and manage expensive buildings?" The money is made around the pew, not in it.

• Public-market way in: a thin set of faith-adjacent listed companies (Christian media, plus the payments/software firms that process donations) — see Section 4. There is no pure-play "religious organization" stock.
• Private way in: private equity in faith-technology ("faith-tech") software and payments; church-mortgage and church-bond lending (a private-credit niche); and redevelopment of surplus church property.

2. What it is and how it's structured

In scope (813110): establishments primarily engaged in operating a religious organization — worship, ministry, and the administration of an organized religion — including local congregations, parishes, dioceses, denominational offices, missions, shrines, monasteries, and convents.[3] One legal entity may run several establishments, and a small congregation may have little or no paid staff.

Explicitly excluded (classified elsewhere by their primary activity), which matters enormously because faith institutions run large secular enterprises. Under the 2022 NAICS revision:[3]

• Schools, colleges, seminaries → Sector 61, Educational Services.
• Church-run hospitals and social-service charities → Sector 62, Health Care and Social Assistance.
• Religious radio and TV stations → Industry Group 5161, Radio and Television Broadcasting Stations.
• Religious publishing houses → Subsector 513, Publishing Industries.
• Church thrift/used-goods stores → NAICS 459510, Used Merchandise Retailers.

So a Catholic diocese's parishes sit in 813110, but its schools, hospital system, Catholic Charities affiliate, and any publishing arm are counted in four other sectors. The "faith economy" is far larger than this one code.

Ownership and governance. Overwhelmingly independent nonprofits, religious corporations, associations, and foundations — there are no investor-owners, and net earnings cannot be distributed to individuals.[12] Congregations are either tied to a denomination or independent/nondenominational (the fastest-growing segment). Governance structures vary widely: Roman Catholic bodies operate through dioceses and parishes; the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) treats local churches as autonomous, cooperating voluntarily; the United Methodist Church (UMC) uses a "connectional" model of districts and conferences; the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints organizes wards and branches within stakes.[10] Legally most are 501(c)(3) organizations (the section of the U.S. tax code for charitable and religious groups), though churches receive that status automatically and need not apply.[11]

3. How big it is

Our federal figures (U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023):

SBA = U.S. Small Business Administration; the $13 million receipts threshold is the ceiling below which an organization counts as "small" for federal programs — a classification cutoff, not an estimate of industry revenue.[2] The average establishment employs about eight people, and average annual payroll per worker is only ~$29,000 — reflecting heavy part-time staffing and the fact that much clergy compensation is delivered as a tax-favored housing allowance and benefits rather than reported wages (see Section 5).[1]

The undercount — read this carefully. County Business Patterns (CBP) counts only employer establishments (those running a payroll); it excludes the self-employed, most government workers, volunteer labor, and organizations with little or no payroll, and can miss activity consolidated under a parent denomination.[4] Independent counts put the number of U.S. congregations far higher: the 2020 U.S. Religion Census tallied ~356,600 and the Hartford Institute estimates ~373,000 — split roughly 335,000 Protestant/other Christian, 23,000 Catholic and Orthodox, and 15,000 other faiths.[7][8] In other words, roughly half of U.S. congregations don't appear in the federal business data at all. Add back the excluded schools, hospitals, charities, broadcasters, and publishers and religion's true footprint dwarfs NAICS 813110. One widely cited advocacy estimate values religion's total socio-economic contribution to the U.S. at ~$1.2 trillion a year; treat that as a broad, non-federal figure, not a hard statistic.[18]

Our federal file contains no total-receipts, donations, expenses, assets, or net-income figure for 813110, and churches are exempt from the IRS Form 990 that other nonprofits file, so granular financials are genuinely opaque — those numbers should not be inferred.[11] As a broader donor-flow reference (not a measure of 813110's own revenue), Giving USA estimated 2024 U.S. giving to religion at $146.54 billion.[5]

4. The investable universe

There is no publicly traded pure-play religious-organization company — the industry is entirely nonprofit. The closest former pure play, the church-giving app Pushpay, was taken private and delisted in 2023.[21] Investable exposure is therefore adjacent: the for-profit firms that sell to, process payments for, lend to, or repurpose the assets of congregations.

Listed (public-market) exposure — thin and always "look-through":

Salem is the closest thing to a listed "faith operator" — it agreed to sell its Salem Church Products unit to Gloo for ~$30 million.[23] News Corp (Nasdaq: NWSA) also owns HarperCollins Christian Publishing (Zondervan, Thomas Nelson), but that is a sliver of a large media parent (and publishing sits outside 813110). The takeaway: value each of these on its own cash flows, not on the size of the religion economy.

Private / other owners — where the real activity is:

• Faith-tech software & payments (mostly private equity-owned): Pushpay (church giving + management apps), taken private in 2023 by Sixth Street and BGH Capital for ~US$895 million (NZ$1.3 billion);[21] Ministry Brands (SaaS + payments serving 95,000+ churches and ministries), majority-owned by Reverence Capital Partners since 2021;[22] ACS Technologies and Vanco, which combined their church-management and payments businesses in 2025;[29] plus Tithely, Gloo, and Planning Center (founder-owned and bootstrapped, structured to stay independent).[28]
• Church financing: denominational church-extension funds, church-bond programs, and specialty church lenders (faith-based credit unions and banks) — a private-credit niche secured by sanctuary real estate.
• Real estate: developers and affordable-housing nonprofits buying and converting closed church properties (see Sections 8–10).
• Values-aligned funds: faith-based mutual funds/ETFs (biblically-responsible or Catholic-values screens). Note these screen the whole market by religious criteria; they are not a bet on the religious-organization industry itself. (ETF = exchange-traded fund.)

5. How the money works

Congregations are nonprofits, so "the money" is about funding a mission and covering fixed costs, not returning capital. The unit economics that matter:

• Giving is the engine. About 90% of a religious organization's revenue comes from individual donors — weekly tithes and offerings, plus special appeals.[5] Total U.S. giving to religion was $146.54 billion in 2024, up 1.9% in dollars but roughly –1% after inflation — the only major charitable category to shrink in real terms.[5] Religion's share of all U.S. giving ($592.50 billion in 2024) has slid from 34% in 2011 to 23% in 2024, even as it remains the single largest category.[5][6]
• The revenue mix beyond the plate: capital campaigns (multi-year pledge drives for buildings or debt payoff), facility rentals (weddings, events, preschools), endowment and investment income, bequests, denominational grants, and program fees (counseling, daycare, schooling).[19]
• Cost structure is people + property. The two big line items are staff compensation and building operations. Clergy are the core workforce — about 474,000 clergy in the U.S., average wage near $54,900 (understated because ministers receive a tax-favored housing allowance and benefits on top).[16] Facilities — utilities, insurance, and maintenance on aging, often oversized buildings — are the other major drain; roughly a third of churches run on annual budgets of $100,000–$259,000.[19] Debt service and denominational assessments round out the cost base.
• What "profit" looks like: an operating surplus that funds ministry, missions, debt service, and reserves. Financial health tracks attendance × giving-per-attender × donor-age mix — a shrinking or aging congregation is a slow-motion revenue problem because giving is concentrated in older members. Cash flow is seasonal and campaign-driven rather than a steady same-store cycle.

For investors, the money is captured where a for-profit takes a slice of that flow: payment-processing fees on digital giving, SaaS subscriptions, media/ad revenue, loan interest on church mortgages, and development margin on repurposed property. (SaaS = software as a service.) The metrics to underwrite there are recurring revenue, customer retention/net revenue retention, payment volume and take rate, gross margin, customer concentration, and cybersecurity posture.

6. What drives demand

• Religiosity and demographics. The long secularization trend is the master variable. The share of U.S. adults identifying as Christian fell from 78% (2007) to 62% (2023–24), while the religiously unaffiliated ("nones") rose from 16% to 29% and other faiths held at ~7%.[7] The key recent signal: that decline appears to have stabilized since ~2019, and about 33% of adults still attend services monthly or more.[7]
• Generational replacement — the core risk to demand. Only ~46% of adults aged 18–24 identify as Christian versus roughly 80% of the oldest cohort, and younger adults attend far less.[7] As older, higher-giving members pass on, both attendance and donations are exposed.
• Immigration is a partial offset: immigrant communities (Hispanic Catholic and Pentecostal, African, Asian) sustain and start congregations.
• Economic conditions. Because ~90% of revenue is voluntary individual giving, disposable income, employment, and stock-market wealth all feed the collection plate.[5]
• Digital participation. Livestreaming, mobile apps, and recurring online giving expand reach and shift donor preference toward convenient, transparent payment — the demand tailwind under most of the investable vendor layer.
• Life events and social role. Weddings, funerals, childcare, food aid, and disaster relief keep congregations relevant beyond weekly worship.

Editorial judgment: demand is bifurcating. Large, trusted, digitally capable organizations may gain members and gifts, while smaller ones face fixed facility costs and weakening attendance.

7. Regulation

• Federal tax exemption. Qualifying churches are automatically treated as tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organizations — no Form 1023 application required — and donations to them are tax-deductible.[11] Uniquely, churches are also exempt from filing the annual Form 990 that other nonprofits must file.[11] They cannot distribute earnings to private individuals.[12]
• Unrelated business income tax (UBIT). Even a tax-exempt church owes tax on income from a trade or business regularly carried on that is not substantially related to its exempt purpose.[14]
• Clergy tax treatment. Under Internal Revenue Code §107, ministers can exclude a housing allowance (or the value of a parsonage) from federal income tax; clergy also carry a hybrid status — employees for income tax, self-employed for Social Security/Medicare.[13]
• The Johnson Amendment. A 1954 law barring 501(c)(3) groups, including churches, from endorsing or opposing political candidates.[12][16] Enforcement against churches has always been light; in a July 2025 court filing the IRS agreed churches may speak to their own congregations about candidates without losing exemption, and the underlying case was dismissed on jurisdictional grounds in 2026 — leaving the practical line blurrier than the statute.[16]
• Employment and land use. The "ministerial exception" (affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in Hosanna-Tabor, 2012, and Our Lady of Guadalupe, 2020) exempts religious employers from anti-discrimination law when hiring their ministers. The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA, 2000) constrains how local zoning can restrict houses of worship.[15]
• State and local rules still bite: charitable-solicitation registration, building/fire codes, child protection, data privacy, and payment regulation — and, above all, property-tax exemption, arguably the sector's largest ongoing subsidy and a recurring political target.

For vendors, compliance failures (data, payments, solicitation) create financial and customer-retention risk even when the church itself stays exempt.

8. Competitive dynamics and consolidation

Congregations don't compete on standardized price; they compete on trust, doctrine, local leadership, community ties, and mission — but they compete hard for members, attendance, and donations, and the map is polarizing.

• Megachurches up, small churches out. Attendance and giving are concentrating in large, often nondenominational churches, while median congregation size has fallen sharply (one estimate: from ~137 to ~65 people between 2000 and 2020).[17] Denominational bodies are losing share to independent churches.
• Mergers and closures. Weak congregations increasingly merge or dissolve. An estimated ~3,700 churches close each year, with projections of up to 100,000 closures over the coming years — roughly a quarter of the total — feeding a steady supply of surplus real estate.[17]
• The vendor layer is consolidating fast. The clearest investible "competitive dynamics" story is in faith-tech: private-equity roll-ups and integrations — Reverence Capital's Ministry Brands, the 2023 Pushpay take-private, the 2025 ACS Technologies/Vanco combination, and the 2025 take-private of AvidXchange by TPG and Corpay — are concentrating the software and payments plumbing thousands of churches depend on.[21][22][27][29] Switching costs are real: church software holds member records, giving history, and volunteer schedules, so migration is painful. Consolidation can improve integration and product investment, but also raises pricing power and the cost of data lock-in.

9. Risks

• Secularization and aging membership — the structural demand risk; giving is concentrated in older cohorts and generational replacement is weak.[7]
• Real estate and deferred maintenance — an estimated ~$1 trillion of church real estate, much of it flat or declining, with rising utility, insurance, and repair costs; surplus buildings can be liabilities before they become assets.[17]
• Litigation and reputational liability — abuse claims have driven multiple Catholic dioceses and other bodies into bankruptcy, with large settlements and insurance strain; leadership or financial-control failures can rapidly erode donor trust.
• Insurance availability and cost — property and liability premiums for aging, high-occupancy buildings are rising.
• Donor concentration and cyclicality — ~90% donor-funded revenue is sensitive to recessions and to a handful of major givers or investment accounts.[5]
• Political and regulatory shifts — changes to Johnson Amendment enforcement, or challenges to property-tax exemption, could reshape operations and public sentiment.[16]
• For investors specifically — faith-tech rides a shrinking customer base (church count and giving), payment-fee compression, and cybersecurity/fraud exposure on giving platforms; church-mortgage credit faces congregation defaults and thin resale markets for specialized buildings; and commercial owners of church software can hit tension between financial returns and the trust their customers require.

10. How to invest and the outlook

There is no direct way to own a religious organization. Practical routes to exposure:

• Public markets (limited, look-through only): small-cap Christian media (Salem Media Group, SALM) and the payments/software names that touch congregational giving (Blackbaud BLKB, Fiserv FI, PayPal PYPL, Corpay CPAY). Apply normal equity discipline — segment reporting, customer concentration, and the actual share of revenue tied to faith organizations matter far more than the company label. Faith-values ETFs/mutual funds offer ethically screened market exposure, not a sector bet.[23][24][25][26][27]
• Private equity / venture: the faith-tech stack — giving/payments, church-management SaaS, streaming, and compliance/background-check tools. This is where recent capital has concentrated (Pushpay, Ministry Brands, ACS/Vanco).[21][22][29]
• Private credit: church bonds and church-mortgage lending — income secured by real estate, with the caveats that collateral is specialized and the borrower base is shrinking.
• Real estate: buying and converting closed or underused houses of worship into housing, mixed-use, or community facilities — a supply pipeline that grows precisely because the industry is contracting.[17]

Outlook (forward-looking judgment, not fact). The base case is a large, slowly shrinking, cash-generative nonprofit sector whose decline has recently decelerated rather than reversed.[7] Total dollar giving should stay roughly flat-to-modestly-up in nominal terms while losing ground to inflation and to other charitable causes.[5][6] The investable opportunities are counter-cyclical to the mission: consolidation of the digital-giving/software layer, specialty lending and insurance to the surviving (often larger) congregations, and redevelopment of the real estate the shrinking ones leave behind. The central swing factor is generational — whether the stabilization in the "nones" trend holds and whether younger adults re-engage. That single variable drives attendance, giving, church counts, and therefore every adjacent business built on top of them.[7]

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Sources

1. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023, NAICS 813110 (establishments, employment, annual and Q1 payroll). Ingested federal ground-truth data. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp/data/datasets.html
2. U.S. Small Business Administration, Table of Small Business Size Standards, 2023 (NAICS 813110, $13M average annual receipts). Ingested federal ground-truth data. https://www.sba.gov/document/support-table-size-standards
3. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 NAICS Definition — 813110 Religious Organizations (scope and exclusions), 2022. https://www.census.gov/naics/?details=813110&year=2022
4. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns — Overview / What CBP Covers (employer establishments only; excludes self-employed, most government, and nonpayroll activity), 2024. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp/about.html
5. Lake Institute on Faith & Giving, Giving USA: The Impact on Religion ($146.54B to religion in 2024; ~23% share; ~90% from individuals; −1% real). https://lakeinstitute.org/resource-library/
6. Giving USA Foundation, Giving USA 2025 (total U.S. charitable giving $592.50 billion in 2024), 2025. https://givingusa.org/giving-usa-2025-u-s-charitable-giving-grew-to-592-50-billion-in-2024-lifted-by-stock-market-gains/
7. Pew Research Center, Religious Landscape Study 2023–24: Decline of Christianity in the U.S. Has Slowed (62% Christian, 29% nones, 7% other; 33% monthly attendance; 18–24 cohort), 2025. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/02/26/decline-of-christianity-in-the-us-has-slowed-may-have-leveled-off/
8. Hartford Institute for Religion Research, Fast Facts on American Religion (~373,000 congregations; faith breakdown), 2024, and U.S. Religion Census 2020 (~356,600 congregations). https://hirr.hartfordinternational.edu/fast-facts-on-american-religion/
9. U.S. Religion Census 2020 (denominational counts and adherents). https://www.usreligioncensus.org/
10. Denominational governance references: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Bishops and Dioceses (https://www.usccb.org/about/bishops-and-dioceses); Southern Baptist Convention, SBC Governance (https://www.sbc.net/about/what-we-do/sbc-governance/); United Methodist Church, The Church as Connection (https://www.umc.org/en/content/organization-church-as-connection); Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Stake (https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/stake).
11. Internal Revenue Service, Tax Information for Churches and Religious Organizations (automatic 501(c)(3) status; Form 990 exemption). https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/churches-religious-organizations
12. Internal Revenue Service, Exemption Requirements — 501(c)(3) Organizations (no private inurement; political-campaign prohibition). https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-organizations/exemption-requirements-501c3-organizations
13. Internal Revenue Service, Topic No. 417, Earnings for Clergy (IRC §107 housing allowance; clergy tax status). https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc417
14. Internal Revenue Service, Publication 598, Tax on Unrelated Business Income of Exempt Organizations (UBIT). https://www.irs.gov/publications/p598
15. U.S. Department of Justice, Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA). https://www.justice.gov/crt/religious-land-use-and-institutionalized-persons-act-2000
16. Johnson Amendment overview and Simms Showers LLP, IRS Eases Johnson Amendment Enforcement for Church Political Speech (2025 IRS filing; 2026 dismissal). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_Amendment; https://www.simmsshowerslaw.com/johnson-amendment-enforcement-relaxed-for-church-political-speech/
17. Religion News Service, Thousands of Churches Will Likely Close Down (~3,700 closures/year; ~100,000 projected; ~$1T real estate equity; congregation-size decline), 2024. https://religionnews.com/2024/03/15/thousands-of-churches-will-likely-close-down-what-happens-to-all-those-buildings/
18. Faith Counts / Brian & Melissa Grim, The Socio-economic Contribution of Religion to American Society (~$1.2 trillion estimate; advocacy-sourced, non-federal). https://faithcounts.com/
19. Vanco / ParishSoft, Church Income and Revenue Sources (giving mix; ~$100k–$259k operating budgets), 2024–2025. https://www.vancopayments.com/egiving/blog/alternative-sources-of-income-for-churches
20. Data USA / U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics OEWS, Clergy (SOC 21-2011) (~474,000 clergy; average wage ~$54,900). https://datausa.io/profile/soc/clergy
21. Willkie Farr & Gallagher / PE Insights, Sixth Street and BGH Capital acquire Pushpay (~US$895M / NZ$1.3B; delisted 2023). https://www.willkie.com/news/2022/11/willkie-advises-sixth-street-and-bgh-capital-in-acquisition-of-pushpay; https://pushpay.com/about-us
22. William Blair / Community Brands, Reverence Capital Partners majority investment in Ministry Brands (95,000+ churches/ministries; 2021). https://www.communitybrands.com/company/news/community-brands-and-reverence-capital-partners-announce-majority-investment-in-ministrybrands/
23. Salem Media Group (SALM); Salem Church Products sold to Gloo (~$30M), 2024–2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_Media_Group
24. Blackbaud, Inc. (NASDAQ: BLKB), Form 10-K, and Blackbaud Church Management Update (legacy product retired 2024). https://www.blackbaud.com/blackbaud-church-management-update
25. Fiserv, Inc. (NYSE: FI, formerly Nasdaq: FISV), Form 10-K (payment processing). https://investors.fiserv.com/
26. PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: PYPL), Nonprofit and Charity Fundraising Solutions and Form 10-K. https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/non-profits/fundraising/donate-button
27. Corpay (NYSE: CPAY), Corpay and TPG Close AvidXchange Acquisition, 2025. https://investor.corpay.com/news-releases/news-release-details/corpay-and-tpg-close-avidxchange-acquisition/
28. Planning Center, About (founder-owned, bootstrapped; Ministry Centered Foundation structure). https://www.planningcenter.com/about
29. ACS Technologies, Vanco and ACS Technologies Unite (2025 combination of church-management and payments businesses). https://www.acstechnologies.com/company/news/vanco-and-acs-technologies-unite-to-deliver-more-connected-services-and-solutions-for-churches/