The federal government took in $332.6 billion in customs deposits during fiscal 2026, up from $215.2 billion the year before, while billions of dollars in tariff refunds flowed back out. The figures come from the Treasury’s Daily Treasury Statement for September 30, 2026, the last day of the fiscal year, and they count gross cash deposits, not what the government kept after refunds.
Treasury’s statement lists the line for the year to date as “DHS – Customs Duties, Taxes, and Fees,” with $332,560 million deposited. The comparison year’s statement, dated September 30, 2025, shows $215,236 million under a line labeled “DHS – Customs and Certain Excise Taxes.” The gap between the two is about $117.3 billion, an increase of roughly 55 percent. Spread evenly over twelve months, $332.6 billion works out to about $27.7 billion a month, so September’s total landed a little below the yearly pace.
The question for anyone following tariff money is which number tells the real story: what came in at the border, or what the Treasury ended up holding. Gross deposits answer the first. The refund wave tied to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, tariffs answers part of the second, and the final tally depends on figures the government has not yet published for the full year.
Treasury’s September Monthly Treasury Statement has not been published yet, and it is the next official look at what customs receipts look like for the full fiscal year.
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Deposits in September fell from a year earlier
The same September 30 statement puts customs deposits at $26,610 million for September 2026 alone. A year earlier, the September 2025 figure was $31,676 million, so the final month of the fiscal year brought in roughly $5.1 billion less than the final month of the prior one. The full-year total rose even as the closing month slipped.
For scale, the same Treasury statement shows corporate income taxes at $427,152 million for the year and withheld income and employment taxes at $3,564,230 million. Customs deposits were a smaller stream than either, but a larger one than they were in fiscal 2025.
What the refunds did to the net picture
The Congressional Budget Office, in its Monthly Budget Review published in September, said the government “began issuing refunds related to tariffs imposed under the authority of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act” following a Supreme Court decision in February. That ruling, Learning Resources v. Trump, was issued on February 20, 2026. By its count, “about $110 billion had been issued in refunds for tariffs collected under IEEPA” through August.
That is why gross and net customs figures sit so far apart this year. The budget office measured net collections of customs duties at about $167 billion for October through August, up from $165 billion a year earlier, an increase of $1 billion, or 1 percent. In its words, “collections were larger earlier in the year but have fallen since May.” August alone was weak: customs duties, which include tariffs, “declined by $17 billion (or 59 percent).”
Treasury’s statement shows the other side of the ledger in a rough way. Under Customs & Border Protection, its withdrawals line totaled $157,803 million for the fiscal year, including $21,264 million in September, which is about 80 percent of the $26,610 million in customs deposits that month. That category covers refunds along with other spending by the agency, so it cannot be read as the refund total on its own.
Why the statement and the budget office differ
The Daily Treasury Statement tracks the cash that moves through Treasury’s operating account each day. Deposits are recorded as they arrive and withdrawals as they leave, with no netting between the two. The budget office’s monthly review, by contrast, reports customs duties after refunds, which is why its October-through-August net of $167 billion looks so unlike the $332.6 billion in gross deposits. The two numbers answer different questions and cover slightly different spans.
The budget office also reported that the federal budget deficit totaled $2.0 trillion in the first 11 months of fiscal year 2026, a reminder of how much revenue the government is counting on from every stream, tariffs included.
Where to find the official year-end customs figure
The raw daily numbers are open to anyone at Treasury’s FiscalData site. The links in this article go straight to the underlying data for the September 30 statement and the comparison date a year earlier, with each row labeled by category. The line to look for is the one that begins “DHS – Customs”.
The number that settles the net question is the one Treasury will report in its September Monthly Treasury Statement, which presents receipts after refunds. Until that appears, the $332.6 billion should be read as a measure of deposits only, and the refund total as the budget office’s estimate of about $110 billion through August.
One detail for anyone lining up the two years: the fiscal 2025 line is titled “Customs and Certain Excise Taxes” and the fiscal 2026 line “Customs Duties, Taxes, and Fees,” so the two rows carry different names for what is reported as the customs deposit.
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This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by The Financial Wire’s editorial team.
David M. Keller is a finance writer based in Columbus, Ohio, covering personal finance and consumer-focused economic topics. He earned his degree in journalism from Ohio University and began his career reporting on local business and economic trends for a regional media outlet. Since then, he has contributed to a variety of online publications, focusing on clear, practical coverage of topics such as cost of living, debt, and everyday financial decision-making.
