Economy & Business · The Record
CBO raises the 2026 deficit estimate to $2.1 trillion as tariff collections run $250 billion short
The August Monthly Budget Review puts ten-month borrowing at $1.8 trillion, $431 billion of it in July. In February, a forecast reported by Roll Call held that 2026 tariff revenue would be virtually unchanged. Treasury's ledger records $81.3 billion in customs refunds through June.
The Congressional Budget Office now estimates the fiscal 2026 deficit at $2.1 trillion, up from the $1.9 trillion it forecast in February, and expects tariff and customs-duty collections this year to come in $250 billion below its earlier projection. Both figures are from the agency's Monthly Budget Review for August, publication 61983, released Aug. 10, and are cited here as reported by Fortune the same day. Daily Pol was not able to retrieve the review document itself, so every CBO number below is secondhand.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, summarizing the same review, reported that the federal government borrowed $1.8 trillion in the first ten months of fiscal 2026, with $431 billion of it in July alone. CRFB's separate July tally puts the 12-month rolling deficit at $1.9 trillion, about 6.1 percent of GDP, against 12-month revenue of $5.4 trillion and 12-month spending of $7.3 trillion. Within July itself, CRFB recorded revenue of $334 billion, down $5 billion from a year earlier, and spending of $765 billion, up $135 billion.
Less than five months into the fiscal year - it began Oct. 1, 2025 - the tariff line carried a different forecast. On Feb. 20, 2026, Roll Call reported that substituting other trade authorities for the tariffs the Supreme Court had struck down "will result in virtually unchanged tariff revenue in 2026." The same report records the assessment that the government "could replicate most of the tariffs imposed under IEEPA using alternative authorities."
Treasury's own ledger shows how two opposite-sounding readings of the same line item can both be accurate. Through the first nine months of fiscal 2026, customs duties produced gross receipts of $244,321,150,476.22, or $244.3 billion, against refunds of $81,302,023,466.05, or $81.3 billion, leaving net receipts of $163,019,127,010.17, or $163.0 billion. The comparable net figure a year earlier was $108,017,789,769.64, or $108.0 billion, on refunds of $5,274,571,005.44. Measured that way the line is up, and Thomson Reuters Tax & Accounting reported CBO putting the increase at $55 billion, or 51 percent, attributed to changes in tariff rates made by executive action.
Measured month to month, the same line is negative. In June 2026, customs duties returned net receipts of -$25,555,668,440.83: $23,627,651,033.05 collected against $49,183,319,473.88 refunded. Thomson Reuters reported about $70 billion in refunds paid across May and June. CRFB reported that net customs duties were negative again in July because tariff refunds were being issued. The refund line is what the headline number hides.
View the data
| Value ($B) | |
|---|---|
| Gross receipts, FY2026 | $244.3B |
| Refunds, FY2026 | $81.3B |
| Net receipts, FY2026 | $163.0B |
| Net receipts, FY2025 | $108.0B |
Source: Monthly Treasury Statement, Table 4, record date 2026-06-30 · Daily Pol graphic
The ten-month headline can be reconciled against the primary record. Treasury's Table 1 for the record date June 30, 2026 reports receipts of $4,151,409,628,325.36, outlays of $5,517,917,965,556.91 and a deficit of $1,366,508,337,231.55 for the fiscal year to date. Add the $431 billion July deficit that CRFB attributes to CBO and the total is about $1.798 trillion - the $1.8 trillion figure, closed by a single month.
One discrepancy sits in the record and is not resolved by the documents at hand. Treasury's Table 1 reports fiscal-year-to-date outlays through June 30 of $5,517,917,965,556.91, or about $5.518 trillion; Thomson Reuters, reporting CBO's estimate for the same period, gives outlays of $5.523 trillion. The receipts figures agree to the dollar at $4.151 trillion. The roughly $5 billion gap on the outlay side is between an estimate and a statement, and neither document explains it.
Analysis
What follows is analysis, drawn only from the figures above. The revision CBO has made this year is largely a revenue event on one line. The tariff shortfall the agency now books, $250 billion, is larger than the roughly $200 billion by which its full-year deficit estimate moved between February and August; the two figures are not presented by any source as cause and effect, and nothing here establishes that they are. On the outlay side, Fortune reported the review showing Social Security up $70 billion, or 5 percent, Medicare up $66 billion, or 8 percent, and net interest on the public debt up $117 billion, or 14 percent - growth in long-established lines rather than a new program.
The February forecast and the August record are best read as a forecast overtaken by events rather than a contested fact. The forecast concerned the yield of substitute tariff authorities after a court ruling, which was genuinely unknown in February. What the record now shows is the size of the miss on the refund side: $81.3 billion returned in nine months against $5.3 billion in the same period a year earlier.
A falsifiable test follows. Treasury has not yet published its own Monthly Treasury Statement for July 2026. When it does, the fiscal-year-to-date deficit should print within $25 billion of $1.798 trillion - Treasury's own June cumulative figure plus CBO's July estimate. If it prints outside that band, one of those two numbers needs revisiting, and this piece's reconciliation fails. Checkable by Sept. 30, 2026.