US retail sales rise 5% year over year in July, marking a sharp cooldown from spring highs

American consumers are still spending, just not with quite the same enthusiasm they showed a few months ago. July 2026 retail and food services sales came in at $763.6 billion, up 5.0% compared to July 2025 but down 0.6% from June, according to advance estimates from the US Census Bureau released on August 14. That 5% year-over-year figure represents a meaningful deceleration. In May, the same metric clocked in at a revised 7.3%. June moderated to 6.7%. Now July has pulled it down further. The trajectory tells a clearer story than the snapshot The long-run average for year-over-year retail sales growth sits around 4.75%, which means July’s reading still lands above the trend line. The three-month average from May through July came in at 6.3% year-over-year. That rolling figure still paints a picture of above-average spending. The National Retail Federation had forecast 2026 retail sales growth at 4.4%, excluding autos, gas, and restaurants. If the current trajectory holds, that estimate starts to look reasonable rather than conservative. A few months ago it looked like the NRF might be undershooting. What’s behind the slowdown The Census Bureau’s advance report doesn’t adjust for p...