Welcome to the dashboard presenting recent trends in U.S. services trade for 2020–24, published by the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC or Commission). The Commission previously published trade data and analyses of services industries in its annual Recent Trends in U.S. Services Trade reports and accompanying online dashboards. This year, the Commission is making key services trade data available exclusively in an online format and will not publish an accompanying Recent Trends report.

Three sets of data on the dashboard present U.S. cross-border trade in services, affiliate services transactions, and global services trade. U.S. cross-border trade in services and affiliate services transactions data come from the U.S. Department of Commerce (USDOC) Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Data on global trade in services are from the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Cross-border trade and affiliate transactions cover the majority of total U.S. services trade via all four modes of supply specified in the WTO’s General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). These four modes of supply serve as a basis for how trade in services is most commonly measured.¹

• Mode 1 (Cross-border supply)—A service is supplied from one country to another, meaning the service itself crosses borders.
• Mode 2 (Consumption abroad)—A consumer travels to another country to use a service there.
• Mode 3 (Commercial presence)—A firm establishes a local affiliate in another country to provide services.
• Mode 4 (Temporary presence of natural persons)—An individual travels temporarily to another country to provide a service.

The BEA publishes annual official U.S. services data on both cross-border trade and affiliate transactions. These data are derived from a combination of surveys of U.S. firms, other administrative data sources (such as financial reports from the U.S. Department of State), and data from non-U.S. government sources.² Comparability between statistics for cross-border trade and foreign affiliate sales is limited because the BEA collects and publishes survey-based statistics in two different ways.

• Cross-border trade data: BEA data on cross-border trade generally encompass GATS mode 1 and mode 2 transactions, as well as some mode 4 transactions. For cross-border services trade, the BEA collects according to the type of service traded. Detailed annual data on cross-border trade from the BEA are available through 2024. The dashboard presents BEA “commercial services” data, which exclude government transactions.³
• Affiliate transactions data: BEA affiliate transactions data cover mode 3 transactions, with some exceptions.⁴ After an entity repatriates income generated through affiliate transactions (mode 3), it appears as direct investment income in the U.S. balance of payments.⁵ For services supplied through an affiliate, the BEA collects data according to the affiliate’s primary industry.⁶ BEA data on affiliate transactions are available through 2023 only.

The service and industry categories presented in this dashboard do not match those presented on the dashboards corresponding to the Commission’s Recent Trends in U.S. Services Trade reports. Changes were made to provide more discrete data than that published on previous dashboards, aggregating these data into appropriate service or industry groupings. For more information on the categories used on this dashboard, see Definition of Services Categories in section I and Definition of Industry Categories in section II.

Global services trade data are published by the WTO and incorporate BEA data on cross-border trade in services.⁷ As of the time this note was prepared, WTO cross-border trade in services data for some countries were available through 2025. However, only data through 2024 are presented in this dashboard because they are more complete.⁸ Like BEA cross-border trade data, WTO cross-border trade data presented in this dashboard reflect trade in “commercial services” and roughly correspond to modes 1, 2, and 4, as specified in GATS.