North American rail freight carried $17.7 billion in goods across U.S. borders with Canada and Mexico in May 2026, an 11.1% increase from a year earlier.

Freight train crossing an international railway bridge near Nuevo Laredo
A freight train crosses the Texas Mexican Railway Bridge near Nuevo Laredo. Illustrative image; it does not depict the May 2026 data release. Photo: AMAPO / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 3.0.

The Bureau of Transportation Statistics release⁠, published on July 22, shows rail ranked second among transport modes by freight value, behind trucks. Trucks moved $99.7 billion, up 15.0% year over year.

Across all modes, North American transborder freight reached $153.4 billion, a 16.1% increase from May 2025. Vessels moved $11.1 billion, pipelines $10.3 billion and aircraft $7.1 billion. Rail had the lowest annual growth rate among the five modes.

BTS reports the values in current U.S. dollars without adjusting for inflation and notes that the statistics may be revised if source data are corrected or updated.

Rail freight was nearly evenly divided between the two borders

Railroads moved $8.6 billion in goods between the United States and Canada and $9.1 billion between the United States and Mexico. That left the Mexico rail flow $500 million higher for the month.

For all transport modes combined, U.S.-Canada freight totaled $66.1 billion, up 14.8%, while U.S.-Mexico freight reached $87.2 billion, up 17.1%.

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Key rail gateways connect both trade corridors

Detroit and Port Huron, Michigan, together with International Falls, Minnesota, were the leading rail connection points for U.S.-Canada freight. At the southern border, the leading rail gateways were Laredo, Eagle Pass and El Paso, all in Texas.

The TransBorder Freight Data program⁠ tracks U.S. imports and exports with Canada and Mexico by transport mode, commodity and geography. BTS says the monthly and annual data support infrastructure planning, trade-corridor studies and logistics research.

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