The U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) have released revised statistics on trade in goods and services as part of their annual revision. These updates, published alongside the "U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services, April 2025" release (FT–900), include changes to data starting from 2020 for goods and from 2018 for services.
For trade in goods, revisions incorporate corrections and adjustments to previously published not seasonally adjusted statistics on a Census basis, end-use reclassifications of several commodities, recalculated seasonal and trading-day adjustments, and newly available data on balance of payments (BOP) adjustments. The BOP adjustments are applied by BEA to convert goods from a Census basis to a BOP basis.
In terms of trade in services, the revisions are based on newly available data primarily sourced from BEA surveys of international services. They also include corrections to previously published statistics, recalculated seasonal adjustments, and revised temporal distributions of quarterly source data into monthly statistics.
"This annual revision has not changed the overall trend in the annual goods and services deficit," according to the release. The deficit was revised downward for all years with the most significant change occurring in 2022 when it was reduced by 2.2 percent due to an upward revision in the services surplus.
These updated statistics will be included in both the "U.S. International Transactions, 1st Quarter 2025 and Annual Update" report and BEA’s Interactive Data Application set for release on June 24, 2025.
For further inquiries or information regarding these revisions, individuals can contact either the Census Bureau's Economic Indicators Division or BEA's Balance of Payments Division through provided contact details.