US Current-Account Deficit Widens to $246B in Q2 2026
The gap rose 15.7% from Q1 as the US net international investment position hit negative $22.42 trillion.
The United States current-account deficit expanded sharply in the second quarter of 2026, reaching $246.0 billion — a $33.4 billion increase, or 15.7 percent, from the revised first-quarter shortfall of $212.6 billion, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported.
The widening deficit now represents 3.0 percent of current-dollar gross domestic product, up from 2.7 percent in the prior quarter, signaling that the gap between what the US earns abroad and what it pays out to foreign entities is consuming a larger share of overall economic output.
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The deterioration in the current account coincided with a deepening in the US net international investment position, which measures the difference between American residents' foreign financial assets and their liabilities to the rest of the world. That figure stood at negative $22.42 trillion at the end of the second quarter, compared with a revised negative $21.27 trillion at the close of the first quarter — a swing of roughly $1.15 trillion in a single quarter.
On a gross basis, US residents held $46.97 trillion in foreign financial assets against $69.39 trillion in liabilities, leaving the country as a substantial net debtor to the rest of the world. The scale of that liability position underscores the degree to which the US relies on foreign capital to fund domestic spending and investment.
The BEA releases these international transaction and investment position statistics quarterly as part of its broader effort to track the country's financial relationship with the global economy. Continue reading at U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
