Construction spending rose 0.9% in August after Census revised July up $27 billion

Thu, 01 Oct 2026 11:38:57 -0400

US construction spending ran at a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of $2,203.1 billion in August 2026, according to the preliminary estimate the Census Bureau released on October 1. SAAR means the month’s spending, adjusted for normal seasonal swings and scaled up to a full year. August is 0.9% above a revised July figure of $2,184.5 billion and 1.7% below August 2025. Census also raised July by $26.9 billion from the $2,157.6 billion it first published on September 1, which turns July’s reported 0.5% drop into a 0.1% dip. August lands about $1.5 billion above the 12-month average of $2,201.7 billion and ranks 18th of the last 25 months, the highest level since December 2025.

August spending returned to its 12-month average

Total construction spending, billions of dollars, seasonally adjusted annual rate

August 2026 is preliminary. June and July 2026 are revised. Source: fred.stlouisfed.org

Total construction spending, last 13 months
Month	Spending ($B SAAR)	MoM	YoY
Aug 2025	$2,242.0	0.0%	-0.2%
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	$2,184.5	-0.1%	-2.6%
Aug 2026	$2,203.1	0.8%	-1.7%

Source: census.gov

What moved

Private construction accounted for $17.6 billion of the $18.7 billion increase. It rose 1.1% to $1,655.3 billion, while public spending rose 0.2% to $547.8 billion. Census reports the 1.0% gain in private nonresidential spending, to $773.0 billion, as statistically significant. The 1.1% gain in private residential, to $882.3 billion, and the 0.9% gain in the total are not, because their 90% confidence intervals include zero.

Within private nonresidential, office spending rose 4.6% to $134.1 billion and is 29.8% above August 2025. Census counts data centers as a subcategory of office, so this line includes the data center work covered in yesterday’s post on the a16z report. (Table 1 of the release does not show the data center subcategory on its own.) Private power rose 0.9% to $165.9 billion and is up 9.7% from a year earlier.

Private manufacturing was flat at $168.2 billion in August. A year ago it ran at $209.8 billion, so the category is down 19.8%, the largest year-over-year decline among the private nonresidential categories in Table 1. Commercial and lodging each fell 0.1% in August and are 5.4% and 10.1% below a year earlier.

On the residential side, new single-family rose 0.2% to $403.3 billion and new multifamily rose 0.2% to $115.8 billion. Census notes that private residential also includes improvements to existing homes. Subtracting the two new-construction lines from the residential total leaves about $363.2 billion in August against $354.5 billion in July, so improvements account for most of the residential gain. (That subtraction is our arithmetic on Table 1.)

Public highway and street spending was $150.6 billion and public educational was $113.1 billion, each up 0.1%. Public conservation and development is 28.4% above August 2025, at $16.5 billion.

How to use this number

Sort last year’s bid log by building type and set it next to the matching lines in Table 1. A contractor whose pipeline leans on manufacturing plants is bidding into a segment that spent 19.8% less than a year ago, and one doing office and data center work is bidding into a segment that spent 29.8% more. If the dollar value of your manufacturing bids fell by less than 19.8% over the same year, your bidding in that segment held up better than its spending did.
Compare your own revenue with a three-month average of the total, which smooths out single-month noise. June through August 2026 averaged $2,191.7 billion, 2.2% below the same three months of 2025. If your billed revenue for those months is flat to last year, you held up better than the national total in nominal dollars. Census adjusts these figures for seasonality but not for price changes, so any rise in material and labor costs over the year means physical volume fell by more than 2.2%.

Revisions and caveats

August is preliminary. Census will revise it when it publishes September data on November 2, 2026. This month’s revision to July was large:

On September 1, Census put July at $2,157.6 billion, 0.5% below a June figure of $2,167.7 billion.
On October 1, it revised July to $2,184.5 billion and June to $2,187.4 billion.
July now shows a 0.1% decline from June, and the $26.9 billion upward revision to July is larger than August’s $18.7 billion gain.

Census says the average absolute change from the preliminary estimate to the first revision is 0.65% for total construction. July moved 1.2%, close to twice that. Most of the change came from private construction, where July residential went to $872.7 billion from $859.0 billion and nonresidential to $765.0 billion from $755.2 billion.

So the August estimate is uncertain as well. Its 0.9% increase carries a 90% confidence interval of plus or minus 1.0 percentage point, and Census says the evidence is insufficient to conclude the change differs from zero. The release also says it can take two months to establish an underlying trend for total construction and as long as eight months for specific categories. The estimates come from several sources and surveys and carry both sampling and nonsampling error.

Through the first eight months of 2026, construction spending totaled $1,450.4 billion, 3.1% below the $1,496.6 billion for the same period of 2025.

Construction Spending | Construction Metrics

Construction spending rose 0.9% in August after Census revised July up $27 billion

What moved

How to use this number

Revisions and caveats