The US current account deficit expanded to $226.8 billion in the first quarter of 2026, blowing past analyst expectations and signaling that America’s appetite for foreign goods, services, and investment income continues to outpace what it sells abroad.
Economists had projected the deficit to land somewhere between $217.5 billion and $220 billion. The actual figure, released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis on June 24, came in roughly $7 billion to $9 billion wider than those estimates.
What drove the miss
The headline number rose from a revised $221.1 billion in Q4 2025, pushing the deficit to 2.9% of GDP from 2.8% the prior quarter.
The primary income account swung from a $3.4 billion surplus to a $13.3 billion deficit. Foreign investors earned significantly more on their US holdings than American investors earned abroad. That $16.7 billion swing was the single biggest driver of the wider deficit.
