What Counts in the $58.34B/month U.S. Electrical Machinery Import Number, and What Moves It

U.S. electrical machinery and equipment imports, Harmonized System Chapter 85: motors, transformers, semiconductors, switchgear, wiring, and batteries, reached $58.34B/month per month at their latest reading, Aug 2026, and the figure is rising, per Census International Trade data, up about 47.0% from a year ago. It is the electrical half of America's imported capital-equipment bill, and the line every grid, data-center, and factory buildout runs through.

What Chapter 85 actually covers

Chapter 85 is broader than the name suggests. Alongside the industrial hardware, electric motors and generators, transformers, switchgear and panelboards, insulated wire and cable, industrial batteries, it also sweeps in semiconductors and integrated circuits, printed circuit assemblies, telephones and networking gear, and consumer electronics. That breadth matters when reading the headline: a swing in the monthly number can come from phone and chip shipments as easily as from motors and switchgear. What it excludes is equally specific, mechanical machinery and computers sit in Chapter 84, and instruments in Chapter 90. A procurement lead buying drives, controls, and panels is buying from the industrial core of this $58.34B/month-a-month flow.

How the number is measured

The series is a monthly customs value: the appraised value at the border, exclusive of international freight, insurance, and duty. It is compiled from customs entries rather than a survey and arrives on a lag of roughly five weeks. Because it is denominated in dollars, prices, currency, product mix, origin, and physical quantity can all move it. Exchange-rate effects also depend on invoice currency and contract pass-through, so the aggregate line cannot isolate any one component.

U.S. electrical machinery imports per month, Aug 2026: $58.34B/month. The archived history spans $31.99B in Feb 2022 to $58.34B in Aug 2026.

The three forces that move it

Several hypotheses belong in the read: electrification projects may affect industrial components, currency may affect dollar values subject to invoice terms, and trade-policy dates may affect timing. Chapter 85 also contains semiconductors, phones, networking gear, and consumer electronics, so the aggregate cannot assign a move to grid or factory demand. Announced duties do not "reliably" prove front-running from this chart; that mechanism requires entry timing, quantity, origin, and comparison evidence. The current rising direction is a customs-value trend and no more.

Every grid upgrade, data-center build, and factory automation project in America runs through this one trade line.

The scale, annualized

The current pace annualizes to $700.10B of electrical machinery and equipment customs value, roughly $2,778 million in declared value every business day. A one-percent move in the monthly figure is about $583 million of customs value; it is not a physical-flow or transformer-demand measure.

The trade line stops at the border; your cost does not. Use the landed cost calculator to price freight, duty, and handling into your imported electrical components. Get from customs value to real cost