Reference file FS-01 / Updated October 6, 2026
U.S. apparel
& clothing retail
statistics
A clean file of current figures for writers, researchers, and anyone trying to understand the clothes economy without falling into a swamp of unsourced numbers.
Scope: United States
Primary sources: Census + BLS
Last checked: October 6, 2026
What this file contains
Useful numbers, with the labels still attached.
This page gathers recent public data on U.S. consumer apparel spending and clothing retail. Each figure links to the original public source, keeps its reporting period visible, and notes where a number describes a broad retail category rather than apparel alone. That distinction matters. Numbers behave better when they are not forced to wear the wrong name tag.
Citable figures
Each figure has a stable linkAverage annual spending on apparel and services per U.S. consumer unit
The 2024 Consumer Expenditure Survey puts apparel and services spending at $2,001 per consumer unit, down 2.0% from 2023.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Expenditures, 2024 ↗Share of average annual consumer spending devoted to apparel and services
Apparel and services accounted for 2.5% of the $78,535 average annual expenditure reported for all U.S. consumer units in 2024.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Expenditures, 2024 ↗U.S. consumer units represented in the 2024 expenditure survey
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports 135.760 million consumer units in its 2024 national expenditure estimates.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Expenditures, 2024 ↗2024 sales at U.S. clothing and clothing-accessories stores
Census reports $285.190 billion in 2024 sales for NAICS 448, the clothing and clothing-accessories stores subsector. This is store-based retail, not all apparel spending or every online sale.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2024 Annual Integrated Economic Survey ↗U.S. retail and food-services sales in August 2026
Total U.S. retail and food-services sales were $773.9 billion in August 2026, up 6.0% from August 2025. This is economy-wide retail context, not an apparel-only figure.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Monthly Retail Trade Report, August 2026 ↗Method & sources
No fog machine in the methodology.
Figures are transcribed from the linked primary public sources. Consumer spending comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' 2024 Consumer Expenditure Survey. Clothing-retail sales come from the Census Bureau's 2024 Annual Integrated Economic Survey. The current retail context comes from the Census Bureau's August 2026 Monthly Retail Trade Report.
This is a living reference, refreshed roughly monthly or sooner when a source publishes a newer benchmark. It does not combine unlike categories into a single invented total. If a source uses a broad definition, the page says so.
Cite this page
Make the footnote easy on yourself.
Suggested citation: Bone Jungle. “U.S. Apparel & Clothing Retail Statistics.” Updated October 6, 2026. https://bonejungle.com/apparel-statistics/
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