Market Data

Resins or Finished Goods? What Actually Fills the $6.11B U.S. Plastics Import Bill

Bulk polymer resins and finished plastic products are counted in the same monthly total. Unpacking the split reveals which really drives the number.

The $6.11B monthly U.S. plastics import bill, the Census International Trade figure as of May 2026, up about 7.6% from a year ago, spans two broad buckets: primary-form resins such as polyethylene, PVC and polypropylene pellets and powders under HS Chapter 39's early headings, and finished articles like sheets, pipes, packaging and housewares. The mix matters because resin flows track petrochemical prices while finished-goods flows track consumer demand, and the two can pull the headline number in opposite directions in the same month.

Two very different dollars inside one line

A dollar of imported resin and a dollar of imported plastic housewares behave nothing alike. Resin arrives by the railcar and the bulk container, priced off ethane, propane and naphtha economics, and it goes straight into domestic molding, extrusion and compounding operations, it is an input to American factories. Finished plastic articles arrive by the ocean container, priced off overseas labor and freight, and they compete with those same factories on the shelf. When the headline series moves, the first question a procurement lead should ask is which bucket did the moving. A petrochemical price spike lifts the resin side even when tonnage is flat; a strong consumer quarter lifts the finished side even when polymer markets are quiet. The Census total, currently climbing, blends both.

How to read the number for sourcing decisions

For buyers, the practical use of the series is as a cross-check on price claims. If a resin supplier cites import tightness while the plastics-import line is rising and resin PPI is soft, the two stories do not reconcile and the quote deserves a challenge. The dollar also sits inside every reading: plastics trade invoices largely in dollars, so a weaker dollar tends to raise the recorded import value even at constant volume, and a stronger one masks real volume growth. Finished-goods import strength cuts the other way, it is a signal about competitive pressure on domestic converters, not their input costs. Readers who want the input-cost story should pair this line with resin PPI; readers who want the demand story should watch the finished-goods side and retail indicators. One line, two audiences.

U.S. plastics imports per month, May 2026: $6.11B. Ranged from $5.01B in Feb 2026 to $34.86B in Apr 2026 across the archived history (Census International Trade).

A dollar of imported resin feeds an American factory. A dollar of imported housewares competes with one. The Census line counts both.

What the split is worth in dollars

Annualized, the current $6.11B monthly pace works out to roughly $73.32B a year of imported plastics. If primary-form resins account for approximately half the bill, a reasonable industry rule of thumb, that is on the order of $3.05B a month of polymer feedstock flowing into U.S. plants, with the balance arriving as finished and semi-finished goods. For a molder, the actionable slice is the resin half: it is the piece that moves with the same petrochemical inputs that set your material quote. The finished-goods half is the piece your sales team should watch, because it prices the alternative to making the part here at all.

Put your part weight, resin price, and scrap rate into the resin cost per part calculator to see what import-linked polymer pricing does to each piece. Price your resin exposure

Published 2026-07-13.