Durable vs. Nondurable Manufacturing by State: 2026 Data

Durable and nondurable manufacturing by state

The table uses the Bureau of Economic Analysis SAGDP2 annual GDP by state and industry dataset. Durable goods include products expected to last three years or more, such as machinery, vehicles, computers, metal products, furniture, and electrical equipment. Nondurable goods include food, beverages, textiles, paper, printing, petroleum and coal products, chemicals, plastics, and rubber.

Values are manufacturing GDP, also called value added. They are not revenue or shipments. The durable share divides durable manufacturing GDP by total manufacturing GDP for each state. Every dollar value is shown in current 2024 dollars and rounded to the nearest $0.1 billion.

National split and top-line findings

The 50 states generated approximately $1524.9 billion in durable manufacturing value added and $1355.2 billion in nondurable value added. Durable production was larger in 28 states, while nondurable production was larger in 22. The national balance looks close, but state profiles range from aircraft and electronics hubs to refining and chemical centers.

California leads durable goods manufacturing by a wide margin. Texas leads nondurable goods and still ranks second in durable output. Arizona has the highest durable concentration, reflecting its electronics, semiconductor, aerospace, and other equipment base. Louisiana sits at the opposite end because petroleum and chemical manufacturing dominate its value added.

Top states for durable goods manufacturing

California combines several durable clusters

California produced $235.5 billion in durable manufacturing GDP, with durable industries representing 61.7% of its factory value added. Computers and electronics, aerospace, medical equipment, fabricated products, and machinery all contribute. The state is not a one-industry market, which matters when vendors build account lists or interpret a single plant announcement.

High output does not automatically mean high employment. Semiconductor design and production, aerospace systems, and technical instruments can create substantial value with fewer workers than labor-intensive assembly. Pair GDP with BLS manufacturing employment and Census establishment counts before estimating the number of reachable accounts.

Michigan has the largest durable share among the biggest producers

Michigan recorded $85.1 billion in durable goods GDP, equal to 74.6% of state manufacturing output. Automotive assembly and parts are central, but machinery, fabricated metals, primary metals, furniture, and other equipment also matter. Vehicle production connects Michigan to supplier corridors in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and beyond.

That concentration creates a deep technical ecosystem. It also raises cycle risk. A slowdown in vehicle programs can reach tooling, stamping, molding, controls, automation, logistics, and engineering firms. Sellers should separate a broad “Michigan manufacturing” market from the specific platforms, tiers, processes, and certifications they can serve.

Arizona, Oregon, and Connecticut are highly durable-oriented

Arizona had the country's highest durable share at 82.5%. Oregon followed at 78.6%, and Connecticut reached 76.4%. Electronics and semiconductors influence Arizona and Oregon, while aerospace and precision manufacturing are important in Connecticut. Each market is durable-heavy, yet the actual buyers, qualification cycles, and capital needs differ.

Top states for nondurable goods manufacturing

Texas leads the nondurable ranking

Texas generated $193.7 billion in nondurable manufacturing GDP, representing 58.6% of its total manufacturing value added. Petroleum refining and chemicals are major drivers, alongside food, beverages, paper, plastics, and other industries. The same state also produced $137.1 billion in durable value, so “nondurable leader” should not be mistaken for a narrow economy.

Energy prices and refining margins can move current-dollar output even when physical volumes change less dramatically. Process-industry suppliers should use this report for market scale, then check operating rates, turnarounds, permits, and project announcements for timing.

California is second because scale beats specialization

California's $146.4 billion in nondurable manufacturing GDP exceeds every state except Texas, even though durable products make up most of California manufacturing. Food and beverage production, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, plastics, paper, printing, textiles, and petroleum products create a large combined base.

This is a recurring lesson in state comparisons. Industry share describes specialization. Dollar output describes scale. A state can rank highly in a sector without that sector controlling its manufacturing mix.

Louisiana, Delaware, and Wyoming are nondurable-centered

Louisiana generated 82.4% of its manufacturing GDP from nondurable industries. Wyoming recorded 80.9%, while Delaware recorded 80.7%. Petroleum, chemicals, and related process manufacturing strongly affect these profiles. Hawaii and Alaska also lean nondurable, though their total manufacturing economies are much smaller.

Regional patterns in the durable-nondurable split

Great Lakes production leans durable

Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, and much of the surrounding industrial belt lean toward durable products. Vehicles, machinery, fabricated metals, primary metals, electrical equipment, and furniture create interlocking supply chains. Illinois is the exception among the largest Great Lakes economies, with nondurable value slightly higher because of its food, chemical, petroleum, plastics, paper, and printing base.

A regional seller should map both sides. A conveyor company serving food plants has a different buyer set from a machine-tool builder serving metalworking shops. State manufacturing GDP shows the size of each pool, but NAICS-level establishment records show where the facilities sit.

The Gulf Coast leans nondurable

Texas and Louisiana are the clearest examples of nondurable strength. Chemical complexes and refineries depend on ports, pipelines, feedstocks, utilities, maintenance labor, and specialized contractors. These facilities can create high value added from a relatively concentrated group of large plants.

Establishment count and GDP can therefore tell different stories. A market with a few capital-intensive sites may need account-based coverage and long vendor-approval cycles. A fragmented fabricated-metal market may support broader prospecting. Use both measures before setting territory quotas.

The Southeast contains both models

Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, and Arkansas lean durable because of transportation equipment, machinery, metals, and related production. North Carolina leans nondurable because chemicals, pharmaceuticals, food, tobacco, textiles, paper, plastics, and other short-lived products outweigh its durable base.

The split helps explain why neighboring states can require different messages. Automotive suppliers care about launches, production part approval, tooling, takt time, and delivery. Pharmaceutical and chemical plants emphasize validated processes, documentation, containment, and process safety. “Manufacturing” alone is too broad to describe either buying committee.

Mississippi sits almost exactly in the middle, with 49.2% of its manufacturing value added in durable goods and the remainder in nondurable goods. That balance can disappear in a broad regional label. Durable operations include transportation equipment, machinery, and metal products, while food, paper, chemicals, plastics, and petroleum-related activity contribute on the nondurable side. The practical takeaway is simple: state borders do not define one uniform factory market. A useful territory plan needs the category split, the detailed NAICS mix, and the actual locations of target plants.

The same caution applies to Arkansas, Georgia, and South Carolina. Their overall totals may place them near one another, but their durable percentages and leading industries are different. Manufacturers buying a packaging line, a machining center, a process-control system, or an inspection service do not enter the market through the same trigger. Use the state table to establish scale, then build separate account segments around process and end market.

How companies can use this data

Choose territories by technical fit

Start with the side your product serves. Durable-focused vendors can screen states with large machinery, vehicle, aerospace, electronics, or metal industries. Process equipment, packaging, ingredients, industrial chemicals, and sanitation vendors may find more relevant demand in nondurable-heavy markets.

Then move below the state. Use County Business Patterns to count establishments by NAICS code and geography. Check BLS employment data for workforce scale and direction. Add plant announcements, permits, leadership changes, certifications, hiring, and installed equipment to identify buying timing.

Plan risk around end-market mix

Durable demand can be postponed when customers delay large purchases. Vehicles, machinery, furniture, and equipment often respond to interest rates, capital budgets, and business confidence. Nondurable products are purchased more frequently, but their manufacturers still face commodity prices, consumer shifts, regulation, and inventory cycles.

A balanced customer portfolio may include both groups. That does not guarantee stability, because subsectors inside each category behave differently. Aerospace does not move exactly like furniture. Pharmaceuticals do not move exactly like paper. Use the durable-nondurable split as the first branch, then analyze the actual end markets.

Interpret capital projects with the right baseline

A billion-dollar semiconductor or battery announcement can look enormous, but construction spending is not the same as annual manufacturing value added. New plants usually move through site work, building, equipment installation, hiring, qualification, ramp-up, and steady production. GDP reflects operating activity after production begins.

Compare a project with the state's existing durable or nondurable base to understand potential scale. Recheck the BEA series after operations mature. Revisions are normal, so store the retrieval date and do not treat early estimates as permanent.

Industry detail behind the two categories

Transportation equipment is more than automotive

Transportation equipment includes motor vehicle manufacturing, motor vehicle parts manufacturing, aerospace product and parts manufacturing, ship and boat building, railroad equipment, and other transportation products. The automotive sector is central in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and South Carolina. Aerospace changes the durable profile of Washington, Connecticut, Arizona, Kansas, and California.

A transportation total should therefore be filtered before it guides an account plan. A motor vehicle supplier may need production part approval and launch capacity. An aerospace supplier may need configuration control, traceability, and customer-specific approvals. Both sell into durable goods manufacturing, but their commercial cycles, quality records, and buyer groups vary.

Machinery, electronics, and electrical equipment

Machinery covers equipment used by farms, construction companies, mines, factories, and other businesses. Computer and electronic production includes semiconductor, communications, instrument, and related products. Electrical equipment includes motors, generators, batteries, wiring devices, lighting, and appliance manufacturing. These industries can produce substantial value without the same workforce pattern as assembly-heavy plants.

When analyzing durable production excluding transportation, these categories become especially important. Arizona and Oregon owe much of their durable orientation to electronic products. Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio, and other industrial states have deep machinery networks. Battery and electrical investment is changing the mix in several states, but a construction announcement should not be counted as factory output before operations start.

Metals, wood, and furniture

Primary metal and fabricated metal operations feed nearly every durable supply chain. Wood products and furniture add another layer, especially in states with forestry resources and established production clusters. These industries tend to include more small and midsize establishments than vehicle assembly, which changes the number of potential accounts even when GDP is lower.

The Census Bureau County Business Patterns program lets users filter establishment and employment records by NAICS code. That is the right source for location counts and jobs in durable goods. BEA remains the right source for value added. Mixing those measures without labeling them creates a misleading comparison.

Chemicals, refining, food, and plastics

Nondurable goods manufacturing includes some of the country's largest and most capital-intensive plants. Chemical and pharmaceutical sites can add high value through controlled processes and intellectual property. Refineries turn crude oil into fuels and other products. Food and beverage plants range from large continuous operations to smaller regional processors. Plastics and rubber manufacturing serves durable and nondurable end markets even though BEA classifies the output on the nondurable side.

This is why a nondurable-heavy state is not necessarily focused on inexpensive consumer goods. Louisiana, Texas, Delaware, New Jersey, and North Carolina contain complex process industries. Their buying needs may include pressure equipment, controls, clean utilities, containment, inspection, sanitation, maintenance, and environmental systems.

Indicators to track alongside state GDP

Industrial production and capacity utilization

The Federal Reserve publishes an industrial production index through FRED, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis data service. The St. Louis Fed tools let researchers graph, download, and track economic data across time. The national series can show a production gain, decline, rebound, or decrease that current-dollar GDP may partly hide.

Capacity utilization adds another view. A plant network operating near its practical capacity can behave differently from one with idle equipment, even if annual GDP looks similar. Industrial production and utilization are national or industry measures in many releases, so they should not be presented as observations for individual states unless the source provides that geography.

New orders and shipments

New orders are a forward-looking demand signal for parts of the manufacturing industry. Shipments record goods delivered during the period. Neither equals value added. A surge in orders can precede output, while a shipment figure includes purchased components that GDP removes to prevent double counting.

Durable demand can vary from month to month because aircraft and other large orders arrive in blocks. Analysts sometimes look at durable orders excluding defense or excluding transportation to reduce volatility. Those national indicators can explain the business cycle around a state cluster, but they cannot identify one state's direction on their own.

Jobs, payroll, and establishments

A resilient industrial base is not defined by GDP alone. Employment shows labor demand. Payroll hints at workforce cost and skill mix. Establishment counts show whether production is concentrated in a few large locations or distributed across many smaller plants. Each measure should be kept in its own column rather than blended into an unsupported score.

For example, an account strategy aimed at enterprise automation may favor a concentrated market with large facilities. A regional tooling or safety supplier may prefer thousands of smaller plants within driving distance. The percentage split in this report helps identify the first industry branch. Jobs and establishment data determine how that branch is structured.

Questions this dataset can answer

This source can answer which states generate the most durable and nondurable manufacturing value, how the two categories compare within a state, and each state's share of the 50-state total. It can also support a map or graph when every state uses the same year, unit, and definition.

It cannot answer which state will gain the most next year, which factory is buying, or whether one location is profitable. It does not identify the share of U.S. exports, household spending, or imported content. Those questions require trade, company, and supply-chain data.

State profiles also change over time. A vehicle or semiconductor plant can eventually move the durable side higher. A refinery closure can reduce nondurable output. Yet the change may take years to surpass the size of an existing cluster. Annual BEA releases provide the consistent series needed to separate a durable shift from a one-year fluctuation.

How to interpret manufacturing GDP

Value added avoids double counting

A parts maker buys material and sells a component. An assembler buys that component and sells a machine. Adding both companies' full sales would count the component twice. GDP instead measures the value each business adds, creating a consistent measure of economic production.

That makes GDP useful for comparing industry contribution. It is less useful for estimating vendor spending because purchased inputs are deliberately removed from value added. Shipment, establishment, employment, capital expenditure, and payroll data answer other questions.

Current dollars include price changes

All values in this report are nominal. A change in petroleum prices, chemical margins, vehicle prices, or electronics prices can affect GDP even when factory volume moves differently. For production trends, consult the Federal Reserve's industrial production index and BEA real GDP series.

Chained-dollar measures are useful for growth but are not additive across components in the same way as current dollars. Since this report compares the durable and nondurable pieces of each state's manufacturing economy, current-dollar value added provides the cleanest additive split.

Methodology and limitations

We used BEA SAGDP2, line 13 for durable goods manufacturing and line 25 for nondurable goods manufacturing. The 2024 values were converted from millions to billions and rounded to one decimal. Durable share equals durable value divided by durable plus nondurable value. Overall rank follows total manufacturing GDP.

The District of Columbia is excluded, leaving the 50 states. The latest 2025 file does not disclose all detailed state industry values, so 2024 is the latest complete annual comparison. BEA may revise history as new source data arrive. See the agency's state GDP methodology for definitions and estimation procedures.

Rounded values may not sum exactly. A state classification describes production located there, not the location of corporate headquarters. The table does not show ownership, exports, profitability, plant count, capacity utilization, environmental impact, or supply-chain origin.

Frequently asked questions

What is durable goods manufacturing?

It makes products expected to last at least three years, including vehicles, machinery, computers, electrical equipment, fabricated metals, furniture, wood products, and other transportation equipment.

What is nondurable goods manufacturing?

It makes products with shorter expected lives, including food, beverages, tobacco, textiles, apparel, paper, printing, petroleum products, chemicals, plastics, and rubber.

Which state produces the most durable goods value?

California ranks first with $235.5 billion in 2024 durable manufacturing GDP. Texas ranks second with $137.1 billion.

Which state produces the most nondurable goods value?

Texas ranks first with $193.7 billion in 2024 nondurable manufacturing GDP. California ranks second with $146.4 billion.

Which state is most durable-focused?

Arizona has the highest durable share at 82.5%. Louisiana has the lowest at 17.6%.

Sources

1. Bureau of Economic Analysis, SAGDP2 GDP by State and Industry, 2024 durable and nondurable manufacturing value added.
2. Bureau of Economic Analysis, GDP by State, releases and data access.
3. Bureau of Economic Analysis, GDP by State Methodology, definitions and estimation methods.
4. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns, establishment and employment context.
5. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Statistics, manufacturing workforce context.
6. Federal Reserve, Manufacturing Industrial Production, output-volume context.
7. National Association of Manufacturers, State Manufacturing Data, state industry context.