MSRS is a blended product including data from the Monthly Retail Trade Survey (MRTS), third party data, and administrative data. The MSRS covers firms classified in the Retail Trade sector as defined by the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), excluding NAICS 454, Non-store Retailers. Retail Trade, as defined by NAICS sectors 44-45 includes establishments engaged in selling merchandise in small quantities to the general public, without transformation, and rendering services incidental to the sale of merchandise.

The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) is the standard used by Federal statistical agencies in classifying business establishments for the purpose of collecting, analyzing, and publishing statistical data related to the U.S. business economy. For additional information, please see NAICS.

MSRS sales data, presented on a year-over-year trend basis, are available monthly from January 2019 forward. Data prior to January 2019 are available every five (5) years from our Economic Census program for years ending in 2 and 7.

Currently, we do not offer sales levels as part of the monthly state retail sales report. Research is being done into the possibility of releasing level data in the future, but there is no current timeline for that release. As our release is still in the experimental phase, our focus is on providing the best product before adding additional features.

For non-time series data, the Economic Census offers reports every 5 years of all geographic levels in the U.S. and Island areas.

County Business Patterns also offers yearly data on Employment and Payroll that is compiled from the same data we use in our calculations. More information on how we use this data can be found in our technical documentation.

No, those estimates are not currently included as part of the MSRS. Lower geographies and sales by more detailed NAICS codes can be found on the Economic Census webpage for retail sales levels.

Yes. U.S. data can be found in the CSV Files under FIPS code 00/state “USA” found on the Monthly State Retail Sales page. The trends from these estimates equal the national estimates in the Monthly Retail Trade Survey releases.

The MSRS data are released monthly at 12 p.m. on the scheduled release date. Our release schedule for the year can be found on our release schedule page.

No. A firm is classified by its major source of receipts by establishment. Firms are instructed to report their total sales for a given month for all retail establishments even if they include some non-retail receipts. For example, if a firm operates an establishment engaged in both retail and wholesale operations, but the majority of sales are from the retail operation, the establishment is classified as retail.

Standard errors are available on our main page and should be used when interpreting data. The standard error numbers are used to calculate the 90% confidence interval for the numbers reported in our State Retail Sales year-over-year Percent changes and should be used to determine statistical significance from 0. More information can be found in the MSRS technical documentation.

The U.S. Census Bureau takes its commitment to confidentiality very seriously. The U.S. Census Bureau is required by Section 9 of Title 13 United States Code to keep respondents' information confidential and can use the information only to produce statistics. The Census Bureau is not permitted to publicly release a respondent's information in a way that could identify a business, organization, or institution. Per the Federal Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2015, submitted data are protected from cybersecurity risks through screening of the systems that transmit the data.