US manufacturing profits increased sharply in the second quarter of 2026, accompanied by a broad rise in corporate sales, according to newly released Census Bureau estimates. Seasonally adjusted after-tax profits reached $359.4 billion.
The Census Bureau’s Quarterly Financial Report showed profits rising by $64.1 billion from $295.2 billion in the first quarter. Compared with the second quarter of 2025, after-tax profits were $143.8 billion higher.
US Manufacturing Profits Rose Alongside Stronger Corporate Sales
Seasonally adjusted manufacturing sales totaled $2.324 trillion during the quarter. That represented an increase of $194.0 billion from the first quarter and $343.7 billion from the same period one year earlier.
The simultaneous increases in sales and profits point to stronger nominal activity and improved aggregate profitability across the manufacturing corporations included in the survey. The figures do not establish how evenly those gains were distributed across industries, and the report’s sampling margins mean the estimates should be interpreted as sector-wide measures rather than exact company totals.
US manufacturing profits feed into assessments of business investment, tax receipts and the corporate-income component of national accounts. The large year-over-year increase will draw attention to whether margin expansion can persist as companies manage labor costs, financing conditions, tariffs and volatile input prices. Subsequent GDP and corporate-profit revisions may provide additional context for the durability of the second-quarter improvement.
