U.S. Import and Export Price Indexes - August 2026

General Description

The U.S. Import and Export Price Indexes (MXPI) measure the average change in the price level over time for goods and services imported to and exported from the United States. Exports are goods and services sold or transferred by U.S. residents to foreign residents. Imports are goods and services that U.S. residents buy or receive from foreign residents. Price indexes and their movements are used to measure the impact of international trade in the U.S. economy. Each price index represents a basket of products of internationally traded goods or services based on commodity or industry groupings. Each item in the basket has specific characteristics and BLS collects prices for these items over time.

Glossary

• Imports

  Goods and services that u.s. residents buy or receive from residents of another country.
• Exports

  Goods and services that u.s. residents sell or transfer to residents of another country.
• Import locality of origin

  The country, region, or grouping from which a good or service is imported to the united states.

  See also export locality of destination.

• Export locality of destination

  The country, region, or grouping to which a good or service is exported from the united states.

  See also import locality of origin.

• Terms of trade

  The relative price for exports in terms of import prices for a specific country, region, or grouping.

  Note: The terms of trade index is the ratio (multiplied by a hundred) of the all-export price index for a country, region, or grouping divided by the corresponding all-import price index.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

1. What are the U.S. Import and U.S. Export Price Indexes?

   The U.S. Import and U.S. Export Price Indexes measure the change over time in the prices of goods or services purchased from abroad by U.S. residents (imports) or sold to foreign buyers by U.S. residents (exports). The Import/Export Price Indexes, along with the Consumer Price Index and Producer Price Index, form the basis of three major Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) programs measuring the change in the prices of goods and services in the U.S. economy. Each of the three has been designated as a Principal Federal Economic Indicator.
   
   Import items are classified by the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States Annotated (TSUSA). Import prices are based on U.S. dollar prices paid by the U.S. importer. Export items are classified by the Harmonized Schedule B classification system of the U.S. Bureau of the Census.
   
   NOTE: Although import and export transaction prices are used to calculate the indexes, the International Price Program (IPP) does not publish price information or any information that might allow prices to be inferred.

2. How are the Import/Export Price Indexes used?

   The Import/Export Price Indexes are primarily used to deflate foreign trade statistics produced by the U.S. Government. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) calculated by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), is an example of a statistic that is deflated using the Import and Export Price Indexes. The Import/Export Price Indexes are also a valuable input into the processes of measuring inflation, formulating fiscal and monetary policy, forecasting future prices, conducting elasticity studies, measuring U.S. industrial competitiveness, analyzing exchange rates, negotiating trade contracts, analyzing import prices by locality of origin, analyzing export prices by locality of destination, and analyzing U.S. terms of trade with select trade partners.

   • Deflating trade statistics: Major government trade statistics deflated using the Import/Export Price Indexes are the monthly U.S. trade statistics, the quarterly Balance of Payments Account (BPA) numbers, and the foreign sector of the quarterly National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA). The Import/Export Price Indexes can also be used to deflate any import or export values into real terms.

   • Measuring inflation: Movement in import prices can often be an indicator of future inflation since some inputs to domestic production, as well as consumption, are imported.

   • Formulating fiscal and monetary policy: The Federal Reserve Board frequently uses the Import/Export Price Indexes as a resource when deciding the nation's monetary policy. Import/Export Price Index data may also assist policymakers in determining the impact of trade legislation on fiscal policy.

   • Forecasting future prices: Anticipating future price trends is important to business leaders and those doing research on international prices. A major input into any model used to forecast price trends is past prices. Although past price behavior is not a perfect predictor of future trends, historical patterns and relationships in the Import/Export Price Indexes can contribute knowledge about the future price levels.

   • Conducting elasticity studies: Price and income elasticity estimates are often used to examine how much of trade volume changes are attributable to price effects and how much to income effects. The Import/Export Price Indexes can be used to construct price elasticity estimates.

   • Measuring U.S. industrial competitiveness: The Import/Export Price Indexes can be used as inputs when measuring U.S industrial competitiveness. These measures include the terms of trade indexes.

   • Analyzing the effects of exchange rates: The Import/Export Price Indexes can be used to construct pass-through rates to measure how much of an exchange rate change is passed through to an import or export price.

   • Negotiating trade contracts: Import/Export Price Indexes data have been useful in both multilateral and bilateral trade agreements. Government agencies that have used the data in negotiating trade contracts include the Department of State, the Department of Commerce, and the office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

   • Analyzing import prices by locality of origin: The IPP produces import price indexes broken down by locality of origin. These indexes can be used to examine how goods imported from other countries, regions, and groupings impact the U.S. economy.

   • Analyzing export prices by locality of destination: The IPP produces export price indexes broken down by locality of destination. These indexes can be used to examine how competitive U.S. goods are when sold to different countries, regions, and groupings.

   • Analyzing the U.S. terms of trade indexes with select trade partners: Terms of trade indexes measure the purchasing power of the United States when importing from select countries, regions, and groupings in terms of exports.
3. What goods and services do the Import/Export Price Indexes measure?

   All goods except for military goods, works of art, used items, charity donations, railroad equipment, items leased for less than a year, rebuilt and repaired items, and selected exports (custom-made capital equipment). Covered services are air freight and air passenger fares.

4. What classification systems are used to aggregate Import/Export Price Indexes?

   Import and export price indexes for goods are published using the following classification systems:

   • Bureau of Economic Analysis End Use System up to the five-digit level. Data are available quarterly from 1980-89 and monthly from 1989 on.

   • North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) up to the five-digit level. Monthly data are available from December 2005 on.

   • Harmonized Classification System, developed by the Customs Cooperative Council, up to the four-digit level. Monthly data are available from December 1992 on.

   Items are classified, respectively, by end use for the Bureau of Economic Analysis System, by industry for the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), and by product category for the Harmonized System (HS). While classification by end use and product category are self-explanatory, a couple of notes are in order for classifying items by industry. In the NAICS tables, for both imports and exports, items are classified by output industry, not input industry. As an example, NAICS import index 326 (plastics and rubber products) would include outputs such as manufactured plastic rather than inputs such as petroleum.
   
   Import price indexes are available by locality of origin for select countries, regions, and groupings. Quarterly data are available from December 1990 to June 1992 and monthly data from September 1992 on. Export price indexes are available by locality of destination for select countries, regions, and groupings. Monthly data are available from December 2017. Terms of trade indexes, which index the ratio of export price indexes to import price indexes for select countries, regions, and groupings are available monthly from December 2017.
   
   Import and export service price indexes are classified using the following definitions: Balance of Payments (BOP) – represents transactions between U.S. and foreign residents – and International – represents transactions inbound to and outbound from the United States.

5. Are the Import/Export Price Indexes revised after initial release?

   The monthly release includes first-published data for the reference month, as well as revised data from the previous three months. For example, the April "U.S. Import and Export Price Indexes," released in May, contains first-published data for April and previously-published indexes for January, February, and March that were subject to revision.

6. How are the Import/Export Price Indexes weighted?

   The Import/Export Price Indexes are very sensitive to the changing composition of world trade. For this reason, the IPP reweights its published index aggregation structures for goods every year with a two year lag in the weights. This means that relative importance data in 2023 goods indexes are based on 2021 trade values. The IPP also resamples each half of the import/export universe every other year. The aggregation structure below the published level incorporates the use of sampling weights in the estimator. Sampling weights generally change every two years when a new sample is drawn for a given product area.

7. How are the Import/Export Price Indexes constructed?

   The formula used to calculate the Import/Export Price Indexes is a modified form of the Laspeyres index. A Laspeyres index uses fixed base period quantities to aggregate prices. This means that the quality of goods and services is fixed; new goods do not appear, and the prices of goods that disappear must be observable. Because these implications are not consistent with the actual workings of the economy, adjustments must be made to the index.
   
   NOTE: All Import/Export Price Index data are not seasonally adjusted.
   
   For more information, see the BLS Handbook of Methods.

8. What services indexes are available and how are those calculated?

   Indexes for import and export air passenger fares calculate changes in the average revenue received per passenger by foreign carriers from U.S. residents and by U.S. carriers from foreign residents, respectively. Data are obtained from an airline consulting service and report on tickets sold by travel agencies, travel websites, and directly by the airlines. Taxes and fees are included in both the import and export air passenger fares indexes. Import air passenger fares data have used the airline consulting service source since September 2008. Before April 2018, the export air passenger fares data were collected directly by BLS from U.S. airlines.
   
   The air freight indexes are calculated from data collected directly from airlines. These data exclude mail and passenger baggage. The scope of the service being priced is the movement of freight from airport to airport only, and does not include any ground transportation or port service. The air freight indexes are presented using two definitions: balance of payments (which represents transactions between U.S. and foreign residents) and international (which represents transactions inbound to and outbound from the United States).

9. What indexes are available by import and export localities?

   Import Price Indexes by Locality of Origin use prices that are a subset of the data collected for the import price indexes. The indexes are specific to a country, region, or grouping and, beginning with January 2002, are based on the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) covering goods-producing industries. Nonmanufactured goods are defined as NAICS 11 and 21, and manufactured goods are defined as NAICS 31-33.
   
   Export Price Indexes by Locality of Destination use prices that are a subset of the data collected for the export price indexes. The indexes are specific to a country, region, or grouping and are based on the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) covering goods-producing industries. Nonmanufactured goods are defined as NAICS 11 and 21, and manufactured goods are defined as NAICS 31-33.
   
   Terms of trade indexes measure the relative price of exports in terms of import prices for a specific country, region, or grouping. The indexes are calculated as one country, region, or grouping's all-export goods price index divided by the corresponding all-import goods price index on a scale of 100.

10. What is the rounding policy for the Import/Export Price Indexes?

    Index values are rounded to the tenth decimal place after being calculated. All percent changes are then derived from the rounded index values and subsequently rounded to the tenth decimal place.

11. When are Import/Export Price Index data available?

    The IPP publishes the Import/Export Price Indexes monthly. The information is released at 8:30 AM Eastern Time, usually during the second week following the reference month. Click on the link below to see the current list of release dates.
    
    Import/Export Price Index Release Dates

12. Where can I obtain more information about the Import/Export Price Indexes?

    For specific details about how to obtain additional information, please see the BLS Handbook of Methods.

• Complete list of Import/Export Price Index FAQs

Technical Information

• Handbook of Methods