US construction spending ran at a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of $2,186.1 billion in September 2026, according to the preliminary estimate the Census Bureau released this morning. SAAR means the month’s spending, adjusted for normal seasonal swings and scaled up to a full year. September is 1.9% below a revised August figure of $2,227.4 billion and 2.7% below September 2025. Census also raised August by $24.2 billion from its first estimate, which turns August’s reported 0.9% gain into a 2.0% gain, and September’s $41.2 billion decline offsets most of it. September sits $12.6 billion below the 12-month average of $2,198.7 billion and ranks 22nd of the last 25 months.
September fell back below the 12-month average
Total construction spending, billions of dollars, seasonally adjusted annual rate
| Month | Spending ($B SAAR) | MoM | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 2025 | $2,245.8 | 0.2% | -0.8% |
| Oct 2025 | $2,241.1 | -0.2% | -1.0% |
| Nov 2025 | $2,220.7 | -0.9% | -1.9% |
| Dec 2025 | $2,216.0 | -0.2% | -1.9% |
| Jan 2026 | $2,195.6 | -0.9% | -2.9% |
| Feb 2026 | $2,189.7 | -0.3% | -3.4% |
| Mar 2026 | $2,199.4 | 0.4% | -2.5% |
| Apr 2026 | $2,168.2 | -1.4% | -4.2% |
| May 2026 | $2,168.4 | 0.0% | -3.4% |
| Jun 2026 | $2,187.4 | 0.9% | -2.2% |
| Jul 2026 | $2,184.0 | -0.1% | -2.6% |
| Aug 2026 | $2,227.4 | 2.0% | -0.7% |
| Sep 2026 | $2,186.1 | -1.9% | -2.7% |
What moved
Private residential accounts for more than the whole decline. It fell 5.5% to $848.8 billion, a drop of $49.2 billion against a $41.2 billion drop in the total. Census reports that decline as statistically significant, meaning its 90% confidence interval of plus or minus 1.3 percentage points does not include zero.
The new-construction lines inside residential barely moved. New single-family was flat at $403.4 billion and new multifamily rose 0.1% to $115.9 billion. The rest of private residential is improvements to owner-occupied homes, which Census defines as remodeling, additions and major replacements such as furnaces and water heaters, with maintenance and repair excluded. Table 1 does not give improvements a line of its own, so subtract the two new-construction lines from the residential total. That leaves $347.7 billion in July, $378.7 billion in the revised August and $329.5 billion in September. (The subtraction is our arithmetic on Table 1.) So the improvements figure fell about $49.3 billion, or 13.0%, in one month, and the September figure is below July’s.
Private nonresidential rose 1.1% to $790.6 billion, a statistically significant gain, and is 2.3% above September 2025. Office supplied $7.5 billion of the $8.3 billion increase, rising 5.5% to $145.6 billion, 39.5% above a year earlier. Census definitions list data centers as a subcategory of office, though Table 1 does not show them separately. Private power rose 1.2% to $171.7 billion and is up 12.1% from a year ago. Private manufacturing slipped 0.3% to $167.2 billion, 17.9% below the $203.7 billion of September 2025, and commercial fell 0.3% to $115.9 billion.
Public spending fell 0.1% to $546.8 billion and is 1.0% above September 2025. Highway and street fell 0.3% to $149.2 billion, and educational held at $113.1 billion. Census marks the public total and both of those changes as not statistically significant.
How to use this number
- If your work is commercial, industrial or institutional, track the private nonresidential line alongside the headline. In the current vintage it has risen four months in a row, from $749.4 billion in May to $790.6 billion in September, a 5.5% gain. Office accounts for $30.5 billion of that $41.1 billion. Set your bid log for the same months next to those lines by building type. If your office and data center bid volume grew by less than the category’s spending over those four months, you are winning a smaller share of a growing segment.
- Compare your billed revenue with a three-month average of the total, which smooths out single-month swings like August’s and September’s. July through September 2026 averaged $2,199.2 billion, 2.0% below the same three months of 2025. Census adjusts these figures for seasonality and leaves out price changes, so if your material and labor costs rose over the year, physical volume fell by more than 2.0%.
Revisions and caveats
Measured against the first August estimate of $2,203.1 billion, September would be down 0.8%. The revision added the rest:
- On October 1, Census put August at $2,203.1 billion, 0.9% above a July figure of $2,184.5 billion.
- On November 2, it revised August to $2,227.4 billion and July to $2,184.0 billion.
- August rose $24.2 billion, or 1.1%. Private residential went to $898.0 billion from $882.3 billion, and private nonresidential to $782.3 billion from $773.0 billion.
Census says the average absolute change from the preliminary estimate to the first revision is 0.65% for total construction, so August moved by close to twice the usual amount. The residential portion of that revision went into the derived improvements figure, which the first August estimate had put at $363.2 billion.
September is preliminary, and Census will revise it on December 1, 2026, when it publishes October. The 1.9% decline carries a 90% confidence interval of plus or minus 0.7 percentage point, so Census treats it as statistically significant. The release adds that it can take two months to establish an underlying trend for total construction and up to eight months for specific categories. The estimates draw on several sources and surveys and carry both sampling and nonsampling error. For comparison with last month’s figures, see the August construction spending post.
Through the first nine months of 2026, construction spending totaled $1,649.6 billion, 2.9% below the $1,698.6 billion for the same period of 2025.