Today, the U.S. Census Bureau released the first-ever Advance Quarterly Services Report. This new report will provide estimates of revenue for select aggregate service industries up to three weeks ahead of the current Quarterly Services Report. U.S. businesses, policymakers and other data users rely on our statistics to make data-driven decisions. We’re committed to making our economic statistics as accessible and timely as possible.

The Advance Quarterly Services Report will provide an earlier “snapshot” of U.S. service economy performance. In particular, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) currently uses the Census Bureau’s quarterly services data as an input to their third estimate of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). With the new advance report, BEA will be able to incorporate our estimates of service revenue into the second estimate of GDP, resulting in a more accurate measure and potentially reducing later revisions. Getting the GDP estimates accurate earlier, with smaller subsequent revisions, is crucial to businesses and policymakers around the world.

The new Advance Quarterly Services Report is just the latest example of our commitment to improving our economic statistics. In July 2015, we first released the Advance Report: U.S. International Trade in Goods to provide international trade data to the public as quickly as possible. A year later, we accelerated the release of select monthly retail and wholesale trade inventories, incorporating them into the Advance Economic Indicators Report. We’re constantly looking for ways to improve your access to our statistics. I’m pleased that this report will support the needs of businesses and data users for better, faster measures of the U.S. economy.

For more information about the Advance Quarterly Services Report, see our Quarterly Services Survey FAQs. For more information about the surveys, see our annual and quarterly services surveys page.