At first glance, the tariffs delivered exactly what they promised, which was revenue. By 2025, U.S. customs duties had reached a summit of $287 billion in a single year, up 192% year-over-year. This marked one of the, if not, the sharpest tariff income increase known in modern history.
But it doesn’t stop at the yearly total; month by month the surge became more striking. The tariff revenue collections in March 2025 sat at $8.2 billion then April doubled it to $15.6 billion. From there on, it compounded to $31.4 billion by October and as of early 2026 it’s still printing $26.6 billion.
However, it’s all in the nuances: tariffs were supposed to make foreign producers pay yet the numbers seem to allude to the fact that Americans are picking up much of the bill.
Paying the price
U.S. tariff rates didn’t just rise in 2025, they took a big leap from 2.6% to 13% in under a year. And crucially, about 90% of those added costs weren’t absorbed overseas; in fact, they were picked up by the U.S. companies, who then increased the price of imported goods to consumers. In other words: tariffs which were supposed to be a foreign penalty, in reality were more like extra domestic taxes.
In the household level due to tariffs, the average American family is estimated to have paid roughly $1,000 in 2025 and that figure is expected to rise to $1,300 in 2026. Even after accounting for reduced consumption, the “effective” tariff rate still sits at 9.9% and that’s the highest it’s been since 1946.
Despite all that, inflation shock has been surprisingly quiet, and the economy proved more resilient than anticipated. Even at the backdrop of tariffs on Chinese imports climbing as high as 57.6% in November 2025, overall U.S. inflation came in at just 2.7%, below the projected 3.1%. Tariffs added, contributed only 0.9 percentage points to inflation far less than what economists were dreading. At the same time, revenue is already losing its lead and declined steadily in just 3 months as per the research note of Pantheon macroeconomics earlier this year
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