Which federal agency reports customs duties in the Monthly Treasury Statement and how to access it?

1. Who actually records the money and who publishes the number that shows up on your screen?

Customs duties are collected by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, an agency within the Department of Homeland Security that enforces import tariffs and remits collections to the Treasury, and those receipts are then reflected as a revenue line in the Monthly Treasury Statement published by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service within the Department of the Treasury. The MTS serves as the Treasury’s official monthly accounting of receipts and outlays and therefore shows the aggregated customs‑duty amounts that CBP reports and transfers to the Treasury’s accounts. This division of labor—CBP as collector, Treasury/Bureau of the Fiscal Service as publisher—is consistently described across the source materials ^{[1] [2] [4]}. Knowing the split matters because collection details and timing can differ between the collector’s operational records and Treasury’s accounting cutoffs.

2. Where and when to find the customs‑duty line in the Monthly Treasury Statement

The Monthly Treasury Statement is released on a regular schedule—customarily the eighth workday following the close of the reporting month—and the Treasury posts the current and historical MTS documents on its Fiscal Service site and on FiscalData.Treasury.gov in PDF and Excel or machine‑readable form. Users can navigate to the MTS page, select the month of interest, and open the statement to find the line item labeled “Customs Duties.” Treasury’s publication is the authoritative monthly accounting record, and it provides downloadable tables and summaries for month, year‑to‑date, and fiscal‑year comparisons. The published formats and metadata facilitate programmatic access and reconciliation with other datasets ^{[1] [3] [2]}. Accessibility is built in via both human‑readable PDFs and machine‑readable downloads.

3. Why sometimes different sources show slightly different numbers and who else reports similar series

Two separate dynamics create apparent discrepancies across sources: first, CBP’s operational collections and remittances may be recorded on different internal schedules than Treasury’s MTS cutoffs; second, independent statistical agencies and data aggregators publish related series derived from different methods. For example, the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the St. Louis Fed (FRED) host related series on tariffs and imports that may show quarterly or seasonally adjusted figures distinct from the MTS cash accounting approach. Journalistic and budget‑watch organizations also extract Treasury’s figures to produce headlines about record tariff receipts, but those derived totals can reflect different aggregation windows or adjustments. Reconciling across datasets requires aligning the accounting basis and timing used by each publisher ^{[5] [6] [4]}.

4. What recent reporting shows about the scale of customs duties and how the MTS has been used in coverage

Recent reporting using Treasury’s published MTS figures documented historically large customs‑duty receipts in fiscal 2024–2025, with news outlets citing Treasury’s aggregated numbers and analysts pointing to record or near‑record tariff revenue in specific months. Those accounts rely on the MTS line item for customs duties while sometimes augmenting context with CBP collection details or BEA import statistics to explain drivers such as higher import values, tariff rates, or timing effects. The consistency across Treasury publications and independent reporting underscores that the MTS is the reference point for headline figures about customs revenue, even as journalists and analysts add layers of explanation from CBP, BEA, or budget watchdogs ^{[7] [4]}.

5. Practical guidance, caveats and how to reconcile competing presentations

For practical use, pull the MTS PDF or Excel for the precise month from Treasury’s Fiscal Service site or FiscalData for the official cash figures; if you need operational collection detail, consult CBP releases or DHS reports. When comparing to BEA, FRED, or news‑site summaries, align on whether the series is cash receipts (MTS), statistical tax series, or seasonally adjusted economic series and confirm the reporting period cutoff. Watch for potential agendas: Treasury publications are official accounting records, CBP’s emphasis is operational enforcement and collections, and media or budget groups may frame numbers to highlight fiscal or policy narratives. Cross‑checking source method statements and timing metadata is essential for accurate reconciliation ^{[1] [2] [5] [6]}.