US Services Revenue Rises 3.1% to $6,421.9 Billion in Q2 2026

U.S. selected services revenue reached $6,421.9 billion in the second quarter of 2026, an increase of 3.1 percent (± 0.4 percent) from the first quarter and 7.7 percent (± 0.6 percent) above the second quarter of 2025, according to the Census Bureau's advance Quarterly Services Survey. That is the largest quarterly increase since October 2021, and it registers at 1.8 sigma against the series' own history of quarterly changes. It also marks a 2 percentage point acceleration from the first quarter's 1.1 percent pace, which this release left unrevised.

Headline: Services Revenue Accelerates

The quarter added $190.5 billion in selected services revenue and lifted the total $457.6 billion above the year-ago quarter. Measured as a growth rate rather than a level, the step-up is 2 percentage points from the prior quarter and 1.2 percentage points faster than the rate recorded in the second quarter of 2025. The first quarter's seasonally adjusted total now stands at $6,231.3 billion, and its 1.1 percent quarterly gain was not revised from the preliminary estimate.

The longer arc is one of steady compounding. Selected services revenue has grown 115.3 percent since the start of 2013, a run interrupted only by the 2020 contraction. Against that history, a quarter of this size changes near-term forecasts rather than long-term ones — and it lands at a moment when the number has an immediate consumer.

The GDP Revision Signal

The Quarterly Services Survey is the primary source data the Bureau of Economic Analysis uses to build the services side of personal consumption expenditures, and personal consumption is the largest single component of GDP, with services the majority of personal consumption. When the BEA published its advance estimate of second-quarter GDP, the services component rested heavily on projections rather than survey returns. This release supplies the returns.

The direction of the replacement is upward. A 3.1 percent nominal quarterly gain, two percentage points faster than the first quarter, is a materially stronger services quarter than a trend extrapolation off a 1.1 percent base would have produced. That argues for an upward revision to PCE services — and by extension to headline GDP — in the BEA's second estimate.

The magnitude is a separate question, and this release cannot answer it. These estimates are adjusted for seasonal variation but not for price changes, so a nominal upside surprise converts into a real-GDP revision only after services deflators are applied. The signal is directional and reasonably strong; anyone quantifying it in tenths of a percentage point of GDP today is quantifying a deflator assumption, not this survey.

Sector Divergence: Where the Growth Came From

One methodological point governs everything below. The Selected Services Total is the only seasonally adjusted estimate updated in the advance report; seasonally adjusted estimates for all other industry levels were not revised with this release. Every sector figure that follows is therefore unadjusted, and quarter-over-quarter comparisons carry the full seasonal signature of the calendar.

The four sectors that matter most to the PCE services translation:

• Health care and social assistance: $1,154.5 billion, up 5.9 percent from the first quarter and 7.5 percent from a year earlier.
• Information: $704.2 billion, up 4.6 percent on the quarter and 10.4 percent on the year — the fastest annual rate of the four.
• Professional, scientific, and technical services: $819.0 billion, up 3.7 percent on the quarter and 6.4 percent on the year.
• Arts, entertainment, and recreation: $115.5 billion, up 11.6 percent on the quarter and 7.1 percent on the year.

Information carried genuine momentum into the quarter. On the sector series that this advance report leaves at the first quarter, information revenue rose 2.8 percent, the largest quarterly increase since April 2021; the advance estimate then adds a 4.6 percent unadjusted gain on top of it. Health care is the opposite profile — a large, slow, dependable base that moved 5.9 percent unadjusted while its adjusted first-quarter rate was 0.4 percent.

Across the wider sector board, the unadjusted second-quarter changes were:

• Other services (except public administration): $280.9 billion, up 20.3 percent on the quarter, 11.9 percent on the year.
• Transportation and warehousing: $409.3 billion, up 12.5 percent on the quarter, 12.1 percent on the year.
• Real estate and rental and leasing: $292.9 billion, up 12.2 percent on the quarter, 7.1 percent on the year.
• Accommodation: $93.1 billion, up 11.7 percent on the quarter, 4.7 percent on the year.
• Finance and insurance: $1,973.7 billion, up 4.2 percent on the quarter, 7.6 percent on the year.
• Utilities: $199.8 billion, down 17.9 percent on the quarter, up 7.0 percent on the year.

Reading Through the Seasonality

The gap between the adjusted and unadjusted totals is the discipline check on all of the above. The unadjusted Selected Services Total rose 5.4 percent to $6,434.7 billion, well above the 3.1 percent seasonally adjusted gain. Year-over-year comparisons, which net out the calendar, barely diverge: 7.8 percent unadjusted against 7.7 percent adjusted. The quarterly sector gains are real revenue, but a meaningful share of the double-digit ones is spring.

Two lines make the point without ambiguity. Utilities fell 17.9 percent on the quarter and still rose 7.0 percent on the year — winter heating load sits in the first quarter, not the second. Accounting, tax preparation, bookkeeping, and payroll services fell 13.1 percent on the quarter for the same structural reason: filing season is a first-quarter business. Neither is an economic deterioration.

Prior-quarter unadjusted estimates were also revised in this release. The notable moves:

• Administrative and support and waste management: fourth-quarter-to-first-quarter change revised from -1.2 percent to -2.2 percent.
• Other services (except public administration): revised from -15.7 percent to -16.0 percent.
• Professional, scientific, and technical services: revised from -3.4 percent to -3.2 percent.

The seasonally adjusted headline was untouched, holding at 1.1 percent for the fourth-quarter-to-first-quarter change. Sampling error deserves the same respect: educational services' 4.1 percent annual gain carries a 90 percent confidence interval that includes zero, which means the survey cannot distinguish it from no change at all.

What It Means for PCE Services

Composition tells more than the total here. Health care and social assistance is the largest of the four focus sectors at $1,154.5 billion and the least discretionary line in the survey — households defer vacations, not dialysis — so its 7.5 percent annual gain reads as durable contribution to PCE services rather than cyclical enthusiasm. That is the sticky half of the mix, and it is growing.

The discretionary half is holding up too, which is the more informative result. Arts, entertainment, and recreation rose 7.1 percent from a year earlier, a rate no household under acute budget pressure produces. Accommodation's 4.7 percent annual gain is the softest of the consumer-facing lines cited above, hinting that travel is cooling relative to closer-to-home leisure — but cooling from growth is not retrenchment.

Information's strength is narrower than its headline. Within the sector, data processing, hosting, and related services rose 20.6 percent from a year earlier while telecommunications fell 1.5 percent — growth concentrated in compute and platform services rather than legacy connectivity. The business-demand read is more cautious still: professional, scientific, and technical services gained 3.7 percent on the quarter, but computer systems design and related services within it managed only 1.3 percent. Consumers are carrying this expansion more convincingly than corporate technology budgets are.

Forward Look: September 9 and the November Benchmark

The full second-quarter Quarterly Services Report is scheduled for release on September 9, 2026, and it is the release that confirms or contradicts everything above. It brings the seasonally adjusted sector detail that the advance report withholds, along with expenses and health care operating measures including inpatient days and discharges.

A second date matters more than it appears. Effective with the November 2026 advance release covering the third quarter, unadjusted quarterly services estimates are expected to be revised for historical corrections and the results of the 2023 and 2024 Annual Integrated Economic Survey, and the seasonally adjusted Selected Services Total will additionally absorb new seasonal factors. The $6,421.9 billion level and the 3.1 percent gain are provisional in a stronger sense than an ordinary advance estimate — the benchmark can move the history underneath them.

The specific number to watch on September 9 is the seasonally adjusted health care and social assistance series, which entered the second quarter growing 0.4 percent per quarter, alongside professional, scientific, and technical services at 1.0 percent. If the full report carries those adjusted rates materially higher, the unadjusted surge was economics and the BEA's second estimate gets its upward services revision. If they stay near where the first quarter left them, the acceleration in the headline total is concentrated in sectors outside the PCE services core, and the GDP revision will be narrower than a 3.1 percent print implies.