Import Prices Rise 6.7%, Export Prices Rise 11.2% Over the Year in May

U.S. import prices increased 1.9 percent in May 2026 and export prices increased 1.3 percent, extending a run of firm monthly gains on both sides of the trade ledger. Measured over the year, the divergence is wider: import prices rose 6.7 percent from May 2025 to May 2026, while export prices advanced 11.2 percent over the same 12 months. The import price index stood at 150.5 in May and the export price index at 168.6.

Both indexes are still climbing, but the monthly pace eased from April in each case. Import prices rose 2.0 percent in April and 0.9 percent in March, so May's 1.9 percent marks a step down from the prior month rather than an acceleration. On the export side the deceleration is sharper: May's 1.3 percent follows a 3.5 percent rise in April.

Fuel Drives the Import Advance

Fuel remains the dominant force in imported inflation. Fuels and lubricants import prices increased 12.5 percent in May, following a rise of 18.6 percent in April and an advance of 10.2 percent in March — three consecutive months of double-digit gains. Within that basket, petroleum and natural gas both moved higher.

• Fuels and lubricants: up 12.5 percent in May
• Petroleum: up 13.0 percent
• Natural gas: up 10.4 percent
• Nonfuel imports: up 0.8 percent, after 0.6 percent in April

The gap between the fuel and nonfuel components is the central fact of this release. At 0.8 percent, nonfuel import prices are rising at a pace that would barely register as a story on its own. The headline moves because fuel is doing the work.

Where Nonfuel Import Prices Moved

Beneath the aggregate, the nonfuel picture is mixed rather than uniformly firm. Higher prices for capital goods, industrial supplies, and consumer goods more than offset a decline in food.

• Capital goods: up 1.3 percent, led by computers, peripherals, and semiconductors
• Nonfuel industrial supplies and materials: up 1.0 percent, after a 1.5 percent increase in April
• Consumer goods, excluding automotives: up 0.5 percent
• Automotive vehicles, parts, and engines: up 0.3 percent
• Foods, feeds, and beverages: down 0.1 percent

The food decline was driven by lower prices for vegetables, fruit, and green coffee, which more than offset higher prices for fish and shellfish and for wine, beer, and related products.

Exports Rise Across Both Halves

Export prices increased 1.3 percent in May, with agricultural and nonagricultural categories moving by an identical amount.

• Agricultural exports: up 1.2 percent, after a 1.7 percent advance in April
• Nonagricultural exports: up 1.2 percent
• Nonagricultural industrial supplies and materials: up 2.4 percent, after 7.9 percent the previous month
• Capital goods: up 0.5 percent
• Consumer goods, excluding automotives: up 0.2 percent
• Automotive vehicles, parts, and engines: up 0.1 percent

Dairy products and eggs, meat, and vegetables drove the agricultural rise. On the nonagricultural side, petroleum, chemicals, and nonferrous metals more than offset lower natural gas prices — the mirror image of the import fuel story, and a reminder that the United States is on both sides of the energy trade.

Trading Partners

The bilateral detail is more restrained than the aggregate. Import prices from China increased 0.9 percent in May and rose 1.1 percent over the past 12 months. Prices for imports from Japan increased 0.4 percent in May, following an advance of 0.5 percent in April, and rose 2.0 percent over the past 12 months.

Those figures sit well below the 6.7 percent all-import annual rate, which is consistent with fuel — a commodity priced globally rather than bilaterally — accounting for the bulk of the headline increase.

What the Trend Line Shows

The growth rate in both indexes is decelerating relative to the prior period, even as the levels continue to rise. That combination is easy to misread. The indexes are still climbing, but the second derivative has turned: May's monthly figures are smaller than April's on both sides.

For imports, the annual rate of 6.7 percent is being carried by a fuel component advancing at 12.5 percent a month. Nonfuel import prices, up 0.8 percent, are the better read on underlying imported cost pressure, and they are running far cooler than the headline suggests. For exports, the 11.2 percent annual rate reflects broad participation — both the agricultural and nonagricultural components contributed in May — which makes it less dependent on a single volatile input than the import figure is.

The U.S. Import and Export Price Indexes news release for June 2026 is scheduled for Friday, July 17, 2026, at 8:30 a.m. ET. The figure to watch is the fuels and lubricants import index: after monthly gains of 10.2, 18.6, and 12.5 percent in March, April, and May, a fourth consecutive double-digit month would confirm that energy is repricing structurally rather than correcting. A nonfuel import reading that stays near 0.8 percent while fuel decelerates would settle the question the other way — that the headline was a fuel event, not a broad imported-inflation event.