August Spending Ticks Higher

Total construction spending in the United States reached a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 2,203.1 billion dollars in August, up 0.9 percent from a revised July estimate of 2,184.5 billion dollars, the Census Bureau reported October 1 [1](https://www.census.gov/construction/c30/current/index.html). The August level was 1.7 percent below the August 2025 estimate of 2,242.0 billion dollars, continuing a pattern of year-over-year declines that has persisted through most of 2026.

For the first eight months of the year, cumulative construction spending totaled 1,450.4 billion dollars, 3.1 percent below the 1,496.6 billion dollars recorded over the same period in 2025. The gap between this year's pace and last year's has been a consistent feature of the data even as monthly readings have occasionally improved.

Residential Spending Leads the Private Sector

Private construction spending rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,655.3 billion dollars, up 1.1 percent from July's revised 1,637.7 billion dollar estimate. Within that total, residential construction spending climbed to 882.3 billion dollars, a 1.1 percent monthly increase from the revised July figure of 872.7 billion dollars, while nonresidential private spending rose 1.0 percent to 773.0 billion dollars, according to detailed tables accompanying the release [2](https://www.census.gov/construction/c30/pdf/privsa.pdf).

Within new single-family construction, spending edged up just 0.2 percent from July to 403.3 billion dollars, remaining 3.5 percent below August 2025, while new multifamily spending rose 0.2 percent to 115.8 billion dollars. The modest single-family gain suggests August's residential rebound owed more to renovation spending than a pickup in new home construction.

The residential gain arrives even as homebuilders have navigated elevated mortgage rates and softer buyer demand through much of the year. Because the Census measure tracks the value of construction work put in place rather than permits or starts, it reflects spending on projects already underway, including renovation activity, rather than new commitments to build.

Office and Data Center Spending Surge Within Nonresidential

Beneath the overall nonresidential total, the detailed tables show sharply divergent trends by building type. Private office construction spending reached 134.1 billion dollars in August, up 4.6 percent from July and up 29.8 percent from a year earlier, driven largely by data center construction, which climbed 7.5 percent on the month and 73.2 percent year over year to 85.0 billion dollars [2](https://www.census.gov/construction/c30/pdf/privsa.pdf). Dividing the 85.0 billion dollar data center figure by the 134.1 billion dollar office total shows data centers now account for roughly 63 percent of all private office-category spending, a calculation based on the Census tables.

Manufacturing construction spending told the opposite story, falling 19.2 percent from August 2025 to 170.7 billion dollars, while lodging spending fell 10.1 percent year over year. Commercial categories including shopping centers also declined, underscoring that the nonresidential sector's modest 1.0 percent monthly gain masks a reallocation of capital toward technology infrastructure and away from manufacturing plants, hotels and traditional retail formats.

Public Construction Holds Roughly Steady

Public construction spending rose a modest 0.2 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 547.8 billion dollars. Within that category, educational construction increased 0.1 percent to 113.1 billion dollars and highway construction increased 0.1 percent to 150.6 billion dollars on the month, though highway spending remained 4.6 percent above its August 2025 level, one of the larger year-over-year gains among public categories.

The margins of error attached to several of these monthly changes are wide enough that some of the public-sector movements are not statistically distinguishable from no change at all, a point the Census Bureau notes directly in its release through confidence intervals attached to each estimate.

Reading the Report's Limits

The construction spending series is subject to revision, and the July figures cited as a baseline for August's gains were themselves adjusted from initial estimates. Because the data blend residential, nonresidential and public categories that can move independently, a national total obscures divergent conditions across home building, commercial development and infrastructure work.

For builders and developers, the report's residential uptick offers a modestly encouraging signal after a year of year-over-year softness, but the persistent gap versus 2025 levels suggests the sector has not fully recovered. For policymakers, construction spending remains one input among many, alongside employment and permitting data, for gauging the building industry's health heading into the final quarter of the year.