Business counts by industry — Palm Bay, Florida

The four ZIP codes the Census Bureau labels Palm Bay, FL held 1,800 business establishments with paid employees in 2023, adding 651 in ZIP 32905, 580 in ZIP 32907, 114 in ZIP 32908 and 455 in ZIP 32909.

Those counts come from County Business Patterns (CBP), the Census Bureau series that also publishes ZIP Code Business Patterns. ZIP 32905 (Palm Bay, FL) had 651 establishments, 9,869 employees in the week of March 12, 2023 and an annual payroll of $611,315,000 (Census CBP 2023, ZIP 32905). ZIP 32907 (Palm Bay, FL) had 580 establishments and 6,010 employees (Census CBP 2023, ZIP 32907). ZIP 32909 (Palm Bay, FL) had 455 establishments and 2,720 employees (Census CBP 2023, ZIP 32909). ZIP 32908 (Palm Bay, FL), the smallest of the four, had 114 establishments and 383 employees (Census CBP 2023, ZIP 32908).

The combined row is simple addition of the four published Palm Bay rows: 651 + 580 + 114 + 455 = 1,800 establishments, and 9,869 + 6,010 + 383 + 2,720 = 18,982 employees. Census publishes payroll in thousands of dollars, so the 611,315 reported for ZIP 32905 is $611,315,000. ZIP 32905 alone carries more than half of the Palm Bay ZIP payroll. For scale, the City of Palm Bay's own list of its largest employers shows L3Harris reported 4,300 employees in the city in 2024, more than any other Palm Bay employer (City of Palm Bay ACFR 2024, Schedule 13).

Construction leads the four Palm Bay ZIP codes combined, with 326 of the 1,800 establishments in 2023, followed by health care and social assistance (217) and retail trade (209).

Construction is the biggest sector by establishment count in three of the four Palm Bay ZIPs. ZIP 32907 had 112 construction establishments (Census CBP 2023, ZIP 32907), ZIP 32909 had 101 (Census CBP 2023, ZIP 32909), ZIP 32905 had 83 (Census CBP 2023, ZIP 32905) and ZIP 32908 had 30 (Census CBP 2023, ZIP 32908). In ZIP 32905 the top spots are shared: retail trade and health care and social assistance each had 95 establishments, ahead of construction (Census CBP 2023, ZIP 32905).

The Palm Bay table adds the four published ZIP rows for each sector; where a ZIP has no published row for a sector, that cell reads no row and adds nothing. Construction works out to 83 + 112 + 30 + 101 = 326, or 18.1 percent of the 1,800 Palm Bay establishments (326 divided by 1,800). The sectors listed sum to 1,719; smaller sectors such as information, educational services, arts and utilities make up most of the rest, and a few establishments sit in sectors Census does not publish for a given Palm Bay ZIP.

Manufacturing is small by count in Palm Bay but large by headcount. ZIP 32905 lists 23 manufacturing establishments (Census CBP 2023, ZIP 32905), yet the City of Palm Bay's 2024 principal employer schedule names L3Harris at 4,300 employees and Renesas (formerly Intersil) at 338 (City of Palm Bay ACFR 2024, Schedule 13). A handful of large employers can outweigh hundreds of small storefronts, which is why the establishment count and the jobs picture in Palm Bay tell different stories.

Most Palm Bay establishments are very small: 1,189 of the 1,800 in the four Palm Bay ZIP codes had fewer than 5 employees in 2023, about 66 percent.

Census publishes establishment counts, but not employment, by size class for each ZIP code. ZIP 32907 (Palm Bay, FL) had 392 establishments with fewer than 5 employees (Census CBP 2023, ZIP 32907), ZIP 32905 had 360 (Census CBP 2023, ZIP 32905), ZIP 32909 had 337 (Census CBP 2023, ZIP 32909) and ZIP 32908 had 100 (Census CBP 2023, ZIP 32908). Added together that is 360 + 392 + 100 + 337 = 1,189, and 1,189 divided by 1,800 is 66.1 percent.

The larger Palm Bay workplaces cluster in ZIP 32905 and ZIP 32907. ZIP 32905 lists 16 establishments with 50 to 99 employees and 8 with 100 to 249 (Census CBP 2023, ZIP 32905); ZIP 32907 lists 9 in the 100 to 249 class (Census CBP 2023, ZIP 32907). The published size rows for the four Palm Bay ZIPs account for 1,789 of the 1,800 establishments, so 11 sit in size classes Census shows no row for in these ZIP tables. The City of Palm Bay's principal employer list shows the scale at the top of the city: it names L3Harris, the Brevard County School Board at 2,840 employees, the City of Palm Bay at 981 and Palm Bay Hospital at 610 as the four largest employers in 2024 (City of Palm Bay ACFR 2024, Schedule 13). The bottom of the same Palm Bay list shows how quickly headcounts fall off: Eastern Florida State College had 176 employees, Winn Dixie 176 across 2 locations and Home Depot 175 (City of Palm Bay ACFR 2024, Schedule 13).

Very small firms dominate in ZIP 32908 in particular. Of its 114 Palm Bay establishments, 100 had fewer than 5 employees and only 7 had 5 to 9 (Census CBP 2023, ZIP 32908). Construction (30) and administrative and support services (19) are the two largest published sectors in that Palm Bay ZIP, and retail trade has only 4 establishments there.

The four Palm Bay ZIP codes held 11.6 percent of Brevard County's 15,510 establishments in 2023 and 9.2 percent of its 205,503 employees, with a heavier tilt toward construction.

County Business Patterns counts 15,510 establishments, 205,503 employees and $11,885,078,000 in annual payroll across Brevard County in 2023 (Census CBP 2023, Brevard County). Dividing the Palm Bay ZIP totals by the county totals gives the shares: 1,800 divided by 15,510 is 11.6 percent of establishments, and 18,982 divided by 205,503 is 9.2 percent of employees. Brevard County has 1,750 construction establishments, which is 11.3 percent of its total, against 18.1 percent in the Palm Bay ZIPs (Census CBP 2023, Brevard County).

Payroll per employee is arithmetic from the published figures, not a Census statistic: $993,651,000 divided by 18,982 Palm Bay ZIP employees is $52,347, and $11,885,078,000 divided by 205,503 Brevard County employees is $57,834. Inside Palm Bay the spread is wide. ZIP 32905, the largest Palm Bay ZIP by payroll, works out to $611,315,000 divided by 9,869, or $61,943 per employee, while ZIP 32907 works out to $248,728,000 divided by 6,010, or $41,386.

Brevard County also leans on very small firms, but less than the Palm Bay ZIPs do. The county had 9,272 establishments with fewer than 5 employees in 2023 (Census CBP 2023, Brevard County), or 59.8 percent of 15,510. Palm Bay's 66.1 percent share is 6.3 points higher (66.1 minus 59.8).

Palm Bay ZIP establishments rose from 1,774 in 2022 to 1,800 in 2023, while employees rose faster, from 16,442 to 18,982, led by ZIP 32905.

ZIP 32905 (Palm Bay, FL) went from 635 establishments and 7,792 employees in 2022 (Census CBP 2022, ZIP 32905) to 651 establishments and 9,869 employees in 2023. ZIP 32907 held at 580 establishments while its employees went from 5,683 (Census CBP 2022, ZIP 32907) to 6,010. ZIP 32908 grew from 101 establishments (Census CBP 2022, ZIP 32908) to 114, and ZIP 32909 slipped from 458 (Census CBP 2022, ZIP 32909) to 455.

The 2022 Palm Bay total is 635 + 580 + 101 + 458 = 1,774 establishments and 7,792 + 5,683 + 305 + 2,662 = 16,442 employees. The employee gain of 2,540 (18,982 minus 16,442) is 15.4 percent, and 2,077 of it, the jump from 7,792 to 9,869, came in ZIP 32905 alone. CBP measures employment in a single March week, so a one-year change can reflect hiring at one large Palm Bay site as much as broad growth; the City of Palm Bay's employer schedule shows L3Harris growing from 2,901 employees in 2015 to 4,300 in 2024 (City of Palm Bay ACFR 2024, Schedule 13).

The Palm Bay ZIP counts cover only establishments with paid employees, so the self-employed, most government workers and private households are missing, and ZIP codes are set by the U.S. Postal Service rather than by the City of Palm Bay.

The Census Bureau states that CBP excludes data on self-employed individuals, employees of private households, railroad employees, agricultural production employees and most government employees (Census CBP methodology). That matters in Palm Bay, where the Brevard County School Board and the City of Palm Bay rank second and third on the city's 2024 employer list. CBP classifies an establishment by its physical location, and the methodology notes that ZIP codes are defined at the discretion of the U.S. Postal Service and may change from time to time (Census CBP methodology). A Palm Bay ZIP total therefore is not a count of businesses inside the city limits.

An establishment is not the same as a company. The Census Bureau defines an establishment as a single physical location at which business is conducted, and a company may consist of one or more establishments (Census CBP methodology). A grocery chain with three Palm Bay stores counts three times; the City of Palm Bay's own employer schedule shows exactly that kind of entry, Publix with 3 of 3 locations reported and 651 employees in 2024 (City of Palm Bay ACFR 2024, Schedule 13). For ZIP codes, Census publishes employment and payroll only for all sectors combined, which is why the industry table on this page shows establishment counts and not jobs by industry (Census CBP methodology).

The City of Palm Bay publishes a different business total. Its Discover Palm Bay profile lists 2,966 total businesses and 21,300 total employees, with all data provided through ESRI and a last update of November 2023 (City of Palm Bay, Discover Palm Bay). The profile sits in the city's Economic Development section, and its contact listing is 120 Malabar Road (City of Palm Bay, Discover Palm Bay). That figure comes from ESRI and a different method, so it should not be mixed with the Census counts above. Last verified: October 12, 2026, on the U.S. Census Bureau and City of Palm Bay websites.