Trade Balance

The United States International Trade in Goods and Services report, coded FT-900, reports the trade balance each month. It is jointly published by the Census Bureau for goods and the Bureau of Economic Analysis for services adjustments. Exports are sales by residents to the rest of the world, imports are purchases, and the difference is the balance.

Goods cover movement between foreign countries and the 50 states plus the capital district and island areas, counted from customs documents without sampling. Services cover transactions between residents and nonresidents, estimated from surveys and monthly reports. The headline is nominal, adjusted for seasonality but not price change, with price adjusted detail in separate tables. It excludes transit shipments, military installations, travelers effects, and trade with territories.

The report is monthly and appears at 8:30 AM Eastern, about 34 to 36 days after the reference month ends. An earlier goods only snapshot appears after about 24 to 26 days, but it is narrower and is not the balance. Each release shows commodity, services, and geography tables with a 3-month moving average and a revisions part.

Each release revises the preceding month, while quarterly rounds revise earlier months to add source data. One release each year carries a full annual revision that redistributes late data and recomputes seasonal factors. Year end releases force adjusted months to equal annual totals.

Goods move through 6 end use groups built from about 140 detailed categories on each side. Services move through 11 broad categories, with no fixed shares.

• Foods, feeds, and beverages, plus other goods: farm and food products grouped by principal use, plus a residual goods category.
• Industrial supplies and materials: largest swing component covering crude oil, gold, chemicals, and metal shapes.
• Capital goods, except automotive: machinery and equipment such as computers, accessories, and semiconductors.

• Automotive vehicles, parts, and engines: vehicles and parts including passenger cars, trucks, buses, and special purpose vehicles.
• Consumer goods, except automotive: household goods such as pharmaceutical preparations and cell phones.
• Services: transport, travel with education, finance, intellectual property, telecom and computer services, business services, and government services.

One past release showed the goods and services deficit at 61.6, down 76.7 from 138.3. The goods deficit fell 75.2 to 87.4, led by consumer goods down 33.0 on pharmaceutical preparations down 26.0. Goods imports fell 68.9, while the services surplus rose 1.5 to 25.8.

Services imports still rose 0.5 to 73.1, while services exports rose 2.1. The lesson is that a sharp goods import swing can dominate the headline while services keep growing underneath.

Goods on a Census basis sum customs documents for the month plus small late carry over. Imports use customs value without freight and duties, exports use free alongside ship value with inland freight to the port. Small shipments are estimated up to 2500 for exports and 2000 for imports, with 250 for certain quota items.

Conversion to balance of payments concepts adds net adjustments for gold, carrier fuel, merchanting, military purchases, and inland freight from neighboring countries. Services estimates come from surveys and monthly reports, filling empty months from quarterly totals and adjusting only clearly seasonal categories.

Headline balance equals total exports minus total imports, with goods and services legs adding to the total. Seasonal and trading day effects use X-13ARIMA-SEATS as multiplicative percentages, with price adjusted detail in separate tables. Volatility is smoothed with a moving average over the month and the two months before it, since aircraft orders swing sharply.

Country and area balances do not add to the global headline, because geography and commodity totals use different groupings and seasonal models. The earlier advance goods only snapshot is also narrower than the full report.