Preview of the 2026 Annual Update of the Regional Economic Accounts

By Ledia Guci  |  August 27, 2026

The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) will begin releasing the results of the annual update of the Regional Economic Accounts (REAs) on September 30, 2026. For the first time, these results will be published on the same day as the results of the annual update of the National Economic Accounts (NEAs)—which consist of the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPAs) and the Industry Economic Accounts (IEAs)—providing data users with more timely, fully harmonized national, industry, and regional statistics.

BEA periodically updates its statistics to ensure its economic accounts reflect the best available data and accurately measure the evolving U.S. economy. During annual updates, BEA incorporates newly available and revised source data along with methodological improvements, with revisions generally focused on recent years. In this year's update, the REAs will incorporate the results of the 2026 annual update of the NIPAs and IEAs, as well as more complete and detailed regional data.¹ The REAs will also introduce several methodological improvements. These improvements will not result in any presentational changes to the published REA tables.

The September release will include annual and quarterly estimates of gross domestic product (GDP) by state and state personal income, as well as annual personal consumption expenditures (PCE) by state. The reference year will remain 2017 for chained-dollar GDP. The updated and new state statistics to be released are summarized in table 1. Additional regional statistics, including GDP by county, county personal income, and regional price parities, will be updated and released later in 2026, following the dates outlined in BEA's release schedule.

The remainder of this article provides an overview of the primary annual state source data and major methodology changes that will be incorporated in the REAs as part of the upcoming annual update. A followup article, to be published after the updated REAs are released, will present the results of the update and discuss the effects of these changes on the regional estimates.

BEA will incorporate a broad range of state-level source data from major federal statistical agencies and other organizations. These include data that have been revised or newly released since the last annual update in September 2025. A summary of the major annual data sources is provided in table 2.

Incorporation of AIES data. For this year's annual update, BEA will incorporate data from the U.S. Census Bureau's new Annual Integrated Economic Survey (AIES) to produce GDP by state statistics for the manufacturing sector. In past updates, BEA relied on data from the Economic Census and, for the intercensal years, the Annual Survey of Manufactures (ASM). The ASM, along with six other annual business surveys, has since been discontinued and consolidated into the AIES program. AIES data are available for 2023 and provide information comparable to the ASM, including manufacturing value added, payroll, and related statistics. They will be incorporated using the same general approach previously applied to ASM data.

Incorporation of Census of Agriculture data. BEA will incorporate new 2022 Census of Agriculture data to update its farm statistics. To ensure consistency and continuity in the historical time series, BEA will also incorporate additional data from the 2017 Census of Agriculture. Together, these updates will provide more comprehensive and harmonized measures of farm activity across states and counties.

Incorporation of IRS SOI data. BEA will incorporate new 2023 data from tabulations of individual income tax returns and new 2024 tabulations of tax returns for unincorporated businesses from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Statistics of Income (SOI) program. The 2023 data tabulations of individual income tax returns will be incorporated into the estimates of components of dividend income, interest income, rental income, royalty income, and residence adjustment. The 2024 data tabulations of unincorporated business income will be incorporated into the estimates of nonfarm proprietors' income.

Other IRS data, including the state-level tabulations of individual tax returns that IRS makes publicly available through its historical data tables, which are used in BEA's state estimates of refundable tax credits (a component of personal current transfer receipts), federal income taxes (a component of personal current taxes), and some components of dividends and interest income, were received too late to incorporate. BEA will continue to rely on state distributions of data from 2022.

As part of this year's annual update, BEA will implement several methodological changes designed to improve the accuracy and consistency of its regional statistics. These include updates to deflators for GDP by state and improved methods for estimating benefits under federal transfer programs. This section provides a summary of the major methodology changes, while more detailed descriptions will be available in the methodology documents accompanying the statistics.

Deflators for agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting. BEA will improve the deflators used for agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting value added. Instead of relying on a single national price index for all states, BEA will construct separate price indexes for each state that account for differences in the output and input composition of agricultural production. For example, the price index for Georgia (a leading poultry-producing state) will reflect poultry prices more heavily than Oklahoma (a leading beef-producing state), resulting in more accurate real measures of state agricultural production.

Deflators for federal government. BEA will also improve the deflators used for federal civilian and federal military value added. Rather than applying one price index to both components, BEA will construct separate indexes that account for differences in the implied prices paid to civilian and military employees. In recent years, these implied prices have diverged, reflecting the impacts of partial federal shutdowns and of programs to restructure the federal workforce, which have affected civilian employees differently than military personnel.

Pell Grant benefits. BEA will improve its estimates of Pell Grant benefits. To better align these estimates with BEA's residence-based personal income framework, BEA will use data on Pell Grant recipients by state of legal residence instead of data that assign grants to the state of the institution receiving the funds. At the county level, BEA will also replace its institution-based allocator with a residence-based allocator that combines county undergraduate enrollment from the American Community Survey with county poverty rates from the Census Bureau's Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (SAIPE) program, resulting in estimates that more accurately reflect where eligible students live.

SNAP benefits. BEA will refine its approach to estimating Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits at the county level. To provide more complete and consistent coverage, BEA will allocate state SNAP expenditure totals to counties using county-level SNAP participant counts from the SAIPE program. BEA is incorporating this new source because the availability and quality of state-reported county expenditure data have declined significantly over time. The SAIPE data are updated annually and include nearly all counties nationwide. Because Alaska and Hawaii have distinct benefit structures, BEA will continue to use state reported expenditure data for these states. This new approach provides a more consistent basis for county-level allocation and improves the comparability of these estimates across counties.