The United States remained the world’s largest services market and was the world’s leading exporter and importer of services in 2023*, reports the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) in its new publication, Recent Trends in U.S. Services Trade: 2025 Annual Report. The U.S. services sector also continued to be the largest sector of the U.S. economy. 

The USITC, an independent, nonpartisan, factfinding federal agency, compiles the report annually. Each year’s report presents a qualitative and quantitative overview of U.S. trade in services and highlights some of the services sectors and geographic markets that significantly contribute to recent services trade performance.

This year’s report focuses on trade in professional services, including accounting and auditing, advertising, architecture and engineering, education, legal, and management consulting services. The report includes a special topic section on research and development services, as well as two thematic chapters. 

• The first thematic chapter focuses on how skills gaps and the introduction of new technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), are affecting the competitiveness of professional services suppliers. 
• The second indicates how changing demographics, including aging and income growth, in advanced and emerging markets; businesses’ ongoing digitalization; and the move by many manufacturing firms to reorganize their supply chains during the COVID-19 pandemic are driving demand for certain professional services after the pandemic.

In recent years, professional services suppliers, such as those listed below, have adopted new technologies to improve productivity, lower costs, and address increased constraints in skilled labor supply.

• Accounting and Auditing Services: Firms are using new technologies and outsourcing or offshoring to improve productivity and lower costs. Firms are reducing the cost of supplying these services by automating and importing lower-skilled tax and auditing functions, while driving revenue growth through higher-value advisory services.
• Architecture and Engineering Services: Firms have had difficulties in hiring and retaining skilled workers, and in response some are offering mentorship, internship opportunities, and flexible work schedules. New technologies like AI, building information modeling, and drone surveillance are increasingly used for design, risk assessment, 3D modeling, and other applications.
• Legal Services: New technologies have led to the growth of lower-priced and more technically sophisticated alternative legal services providers and legal technology companies. U.S. firms supplying legal services in foreign markets are using technology to increase efficiency but are also facing complex regulatory environments.

The demand for professional services in the following sectors reflects changing demographics and expanding digitalization.

• Advertising Services: This industry has seen a sharp decline in demand for linear television content and a sharp rise in demand for video streaming services content. Firms are also seeing growing demand for content developed for social media platforms, and increasingly use AI technologies to target consumers more effectively.
• Education Services: Many U.S. universities have sought to attract international students to boost declining domestic enrollments and offset funding shortfalls. The international branch campuses of some U.S. universities have struggled to enroll enough students or attract adequate financing, with many such campuses closing in recent years. 
• Management Consulting Services: Demand has been driven by the need for assistance in dealing with technological advancements and shifts in workplace habits, along with supply chain optimization and sustainability initiatives. Traditional consulting firms have been impacted by rising competition from IT firms, small niche companies, and freelance consulting platforms.

The USITC hosted its 18th annual services roundtable on October 30, 2024. The discussion, summarized in the report, focused on how widespread workforce gaps and aging demographics are affecting U.S. services industries, how some graduates of U.S. schools and universities are struggling to find employment within the first two years, and how AI is expected to augment or replace many tasks in professional services, among other topics.

Recent Trends in U.S. Services Trade: 2025 Annual Report (Inv. No. 332-605, USITC Publication 5643, July 2025) is available on the USITC website. An interactive dashboard supplements the report.

*The latest year available for cross-border services trade data is 2023; the latest year available for affiliate sales and purchases data is 2022.

The United States was the world's largest services market and was the world’s leading exporter and importer of services in 2021, reports the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) in its new publication Recent Trends in U.S. Services Trade, 2023 Annual Report. As also noted in the report, preliminary data on U.S. cross-border services trade for 2022 show that total services exports were 15.9 percent higher in 2022 compared to 2021.

The USITC, an independent, nonpartisan, factfinding federal agency, compiles the report annually. Each year's report presents a qualitative and quantitative overview of U.S. trade in services and highlights some of the services sectors and geographic markets that contribute substantially to recent services trade performance.

This year’s report focuses on distribution services, including specific discussions on retail supply chains, e-commerce, logistics, warehousing, maritime shipping, port services, trucking and rail, air cargo, and express delivery via drones. Each section analyzes global market conditions in the industry and summarizes the industry’s outlook.

The report describes detailed trade in services via cross-border transactions through 2021 and via affiliate sales through 2020, as well as preliminary cross-border trade data for 2022 (latest available data). Several highlights are listed below.

• In 2021, the services sector represented the largest sector of the U.S. economy, and the United States is the world’s top cross-border exporter and importer of services. U.S. exports of private services totaled $771.9 billion, whereas imports totaled $524.9 billion, resulting in a $247.0 billion trade surplus.
• Within the services sector, sales by foreign affiliates of U.S. firms—the leading channel by which many U.S. services are delivered to foreign markets—totaled $1.6 trillion in 2020 while the value of services purchased from foreign-owned affiliates in the United States totaled $1.2 trillion. 
• The distribution services sector includes a wide range of activities that facilitate the movement of goods through the supply chain from producer to end consumer. Distribution services accounted for 7.1 percent of total cross-border services exports and 17.4 percent of imports in 2021. They represented 27.4 percent of total sales by the foreign affiliates of U.S. firms and 29.5 percent of total purchases from the U.S. affiliates of foreign firms in 2020.

Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic created challenges for global supply chains and the distribution services that enable them, while recent volatility in consumer demand for goods imports and pandemic-related measures disrupted distribution and transportation networks. At the same time, firms have adopted new technologies to improve competitiveness and reach new customers. Distribution networks, including retail, logistics, and warehousing, adapted to these developments in a myriad of ways. In particular:

• In retail supply chains, the pandemic highlighted the limits of longstanding global supply chain practices such as just-in-time inventory management, with firms shifting to focus on supply chain resiliency and increasing transparency;
• In e-commerce, global e-commerce marketplace platforms have increasingly allowed small and medium-sized enterprises to reach foreign customers, driven by advances in digital technology;
• In logistics, innovation (including adoption of data analytics and tracking technologies) and new business models helped the industry improve efficiency competitiveness; and
• In warehousing, increased demand led to rapid growth in the sector while highlighting labor issues such as high turnover, labor availability issues, and injuries.

Pandemic-related disruptions also led to recent developments in transportation services, including maritime shipping, ports, trucking and rail, air cargo, and express delivery via drone.

• In maritime shipping, increased demand for sea freight led to record profitability for carriers and increased government scrutiny of the industry.
• In port services, congestion resulted in increased wait times, delays, and costs at ports, while spurring investment in port expansion and automation, but delays and prices have fallen sharply since late 2022.
• In trucking and rail, the pandemic exacerbated longstanding labor issues in these networks, which are vital in connecting consumers to global supply chains.
• In air cargo, passenger air travel was disrupted during the pandemic, decreasing air cargo capacity, while the entry of new air cargo providers in the sector led to increased competition.
• In express delivery via drone, the market remained small and was developing slowly, but firms continue to pilot new drone delivery projects.

The USITC hosted its 16th annual Services Roundtable, which was held virtually, on November 2, 2022. The discussion, summarized in the report, focused on recent global economic and political shocks, including the COVID-19 pandemic and trade policy uncertainty, as well as the impact of these shocks on distribution services.

Recent Trends in U.S. Services Trade, 2023 Annual Report (Investigation No. 332-594, USITC publication 5431, May 2023) is available on the USITC's Internet site at https://usitc.gov/publications/332/pub5431.pdf. The link to the interactive dashboard is:  https://www.usitc.gov/publications/industry_econ_analysis_332/2023/recent_trends_us_services_trade_2023_annual_report.

 

About factfinding investigations: USITC general factfinding investigations, such as this one, cover matters related to tariffs, trade, and competitiveness and are generally conducted under section 332(g) of the Tariff Act of 1930 at the request of the U.S. Trade Representative, the House Committee on Ways and Means, or the Senate Committee on Finance. The resulting reports convey the Commission’s objective findings and independent analyses on the subjects investigated. The Commission makes no recommendations on policy or other matters in its general factfinding reports. Upon completion of each investigation, the USITC submits its findings and analyses to the requester. General factfinding investigation reports are subsequently released to the public unless they are classified by the requester for national security reasons.

The United States is the world's largest services market and was the world’s leading exporter and importer of services in 2017, reports the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) in its new publication Recent Trends in U.S. Services Trade, 2019 Annual Report.

The USITC, an independent, nonpartisan, factfinding federal agency, compiles the report annually. Each year's report presents a qualitative and quantitative overview of U.S. trade in services and highlights some of the services sectors and geographic markets that contribute substantially to recent services trade performance.

This year’s report focuses on distribution services and includes chapters on three specific industries: logistics services, maritime transport services, and retail services. Each chapter analyzes global market conditions in the industry, examines recent trade performance, and summarizes the industry’s outlook.

The report describes trade in services via cross-border transactions through 2017 and via affiliate sales through 2016 (latest available data). Highlights include:

• In 2017, the value of U.S. commercial services exports was $778.4 billion (15 percent of global services exports), while imports totaled $520.4 billion (10 percent of global services imports). Preliminary data also indicate that in 2018, U.S. services exports increased by 3.4 percent to $805.7 billion, while imports rose by 4.3 percent to $544.3 billion.  Distribution services accounted for 6 percent of U.S. cross-border services, and 12 percent of services imports.
• Within the services sector, sales by foreign affiliates of U.S. firms – the leading channel by which many U.S. services are delivered to foreign markets – totaled $1.4 trillion in 2016 while the value of services purchased from foreign-owned affiliates in the United States totaled $876.9 billion. Distribution services accounted for about 29 percent of total sales by foreign affiliates of U.S. firms and 30 percent of total purchases from foreign-owned firms located in the United States.
• The contribution of private sector distribution services to U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) was $2.7 trillion in 2017, accounting for 17 percent of U.S. private sector GDP. From 2016 to 2017 distribution services grew by 3.2 percent, faster than the 2.1 percent growth rate experienced by private sector GDP as a whole. Distribution services were also a leading contributor to U.S. private sector employment in 2017, accounting for 21.1 percent of the private sector workforce, or 25 million full-time equivalent (FTE) employees. Wholesale trade was the largest category of distribution services, accounting for 41 percent of distribution services’ contribution to U.S. private sector GDP, followed by retail trade (39 percent). From 2016 to 2017, GDP in wholesale trade grew by roughly 2 percent, while retail trade and transportation and warehousing each grew by 4 percent.
• Distribution services encompass a wide range of activities that facilitate the movement of goods through the supply chain—from producer to end consumer.  Several industries in the distribution services sector have experienced consolidation through mergers and acquisitions over the past several years. The emergence of e-commerce over the last 10–15 years has also resulted in significant innovation in the delivery of distribution services. Further, a growing number of traditional retailers are developing the capability to analyze the data produced by customer’s interactions with their websites and apps, including data on browsing habits and purchasing activity.

The USITC hosted its 12th annual services roundtable on November 7, 2018. The discussion, summarized in the report, focused on how services trade is affected by tariffs, World Trade Organization commitments, other rules and agreements for trade in goods, and related crosscutting issues, and differences in the services economies of developed and emerging markets.

Recent Trends in U.S. Services Trade, 2019 Annual Report (Investigation No. 332-345, USITC publication 4975, September 2019) is available on the USITC's Internet site at https://www.usitc.gov/publications/industry_econ_analysis_332/2019/recent_trends_us_services_trade_2019_annual_report.htm.

The United States was the world's largest services market and the world's leading exporter and importer of services in 2011, reports the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) in its publication Recent Trends in U.S. Services Trade, 2013 Annual Report.

The USITC, an independent, nonpartisan, factfinding federal agency, compiles the report annually. Each year's report presents a qualitative and quantitative overview of U.S. trade in services and highlights some of the service sectors and geographic markets that contribute substantially to recent services trade performance.

This year's report focuses on professional services and includes separate chapters on the education, healthcare, and legal services sectors. Each chapter analyzes global market conditions in the sector, examines recent trade performance, and summarizes the sector's outlook.

The 2013 report covers cross-border trade in services through 2011 and affiliate sales through 2010 (latest available data). Highlights of the report include:

 

• From 2010 to 2011, U.S. cross-border services exports increased by 9 percent (to $587 billion) while U.S. services imports grew by 7 percent (to $393 billion). This represents the second consecutive year of strong trade growth following the financial crisis. Professional services accounted for 21 percent of total U.S. cross-border services exports and 19 percent of cross-border imports in 2011.

   

   

• Services supplied abroad by foreign affiliates of U.S. firms continued to exceed services purchased from U.S. affiliates of foreign firms, reaching $1.1 trillion and $696 billion, respectively, in 2010. Professional services accounted for a relatively small but growing share of both sales and purchases of services through affiliates. Architectural and engineering services accounted for the largest share of professional services supplied by U.S. foreign affiliates, while advertising services led purchases from U.S. affiliates of foreign firms in 2010.

   

   

• The contribution of U.S. professional services to U.S. GDP in 2011 was $2.2 trillion, equal to 24 percent of the value added by all services and 19 percent of total private sector GDP. Professional services value added exceeded all other major services categories including distribution, financial, and electronic services in 2011. Professional services value added grew by 3 percent in 2011, faster than the average of all services (2 percent) and more than 3 times the growth of the manufacturing sector (0.8 percent) during the year. The education, healthcare, and legal services sectors are all projected to post moderate growth in the next few years.

   

   

• Professional services employed 26 million full-time-equivalent employees in 2011, equal to 26 percent of the total U.S. private sector workforce. Healthcare services accounted for 15 million of these employees. In 2011, labor productivity in professional services grew by 1 percent while average wages grew by 3 percent (to $60,368), exceeding the private sector average wage but trailing electronic and financial services. Both productivity and wages varied widely among professional services industries.

   

   

• Professional services are subject to a variety of both entry and operational trade barriers. In many cases, these barriers take the form of domestic regulations and are byproducts of a country's domestic policy objectives such as protecting and developing its indigenous workforce. Such restrictions include economic needs tests and quotas on foreign providers. Other significant barriers include limits on setting up foreign affiliates and requirements that managerial staff be either citizens or permanent residents.

   

   

• The USITC hosted its sixth annual services roundtable on November 13, 2012. The discussion, summarized in the report, covered services liberalization and regulation, and prospects for future services trade agreements.

   

Recent Trends in U.S. Services Trade, 2013 Annual Report (Investigation No. 332-345, USITC publication 4412, July 2013) is available on the USITC's Internet site at http://www.usitc.gov/publications/332/pub4412.pdf.

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