North Dakota taxable sales and purchases reached $7.39 billion in the second quarter of 2026, up 3.86% from $7.11 billion a year earlier, according to the state report released Sept. 4. The increase gives policymakers a current measure of commercial activity across the state, but the industry and city results show that growth was uneven.
Retail trade, the largest revenue category in the report, rose 4.4% from the second quarter of 2025. Real estate increased 4.7%, while accommodations gained 1.4%. Manufacturing climbed 70.6%, transportation and warehousing rose 16.7%, and administrative support, waste management and remediation increased 14.6%, the quarterly data show.
Those gains were partly offset by weaker results in several sectors. Utilities fell 31%, health care and social assistance declined 19.1%, information and cultural industries dropped 13.7%, and oil, gas and mining decreased 8.8%. Tax Commissioner Brian Kroshus said large industrial projects helped lift overall activity and created spillover effects in retail and manufacturing. He attributed the energy-sector decline primarily to oil-price uncertainty tied to Middle East events.
The pattern broadly extends the expansion reported earlier in the year. In the first quarter, taxable sales and purchases rose 4.24% to $5.96 billion, from $5.71 billion a year earlier, according to a separate state release. Manufacturing increased 85.5% in that period, while mining and oil and gas extraction fell 19.4%. Taken together, the two reports suggest that industrial construction and manufacturing have provided momentum while the energy category remained a drag.
City-level figures also point to a mixed expansion. Second-quarter taxable activity increased 5.5% in Jamestown, 3.6% in Fargo, 1.6% in Grand Forks and 0.9% in Bismarck. Dickinson, Minot and Williston each recorded small declines of 0.1% to 0.3%. Among the 50 largest communities, Ellendale posted the largest percentage gain at 55.6%, followed by Crosby at 49.3% and Mayville at 37.9%, according to the state figures.
The sales increase arrived against a more cautious labor backdrop. Federal wage records showed North Dakota covered employment at about 430,400 in December 2025, down 0.2% from a year earlier, while average weekly wages rose 2.7% to $1,350, according to the BLS table. Nationally, real gross domestic product grew at a 1.5% annual rate in the second quarter, while private domestic final sales rose 3.9%, the BEA estimate said.
For North Dakota, the practical budget implication is direct: the Tax Commissioner’s office says sales-tax collections represent a significant share of general-fund revenue used for state services. The latest report therefore signals continued revenue support, but not a uniform boom. Manufacturing and project-driven activity are carrying much of the gain, while energy-linked and service categories remain softer. Because taxable sales measure nominal transactions rather than inflation-adjusted output, the 3.86% increase should be read as a revenue and activity indicator, not as a direct estimate of real economic growth.
