US Market | Momentum of Late-2025 Machinery Demand Carries Into the First 2 Months of 2026
McLean, Va. (April 13, 2026)
New orders of metalworking machinery, measured by the U.S. Manufacturing Technology Orders Report published by AMT – The Association For Manufacturing Technology, totaled $488.9 million in February 2026.
The value of manufacturing technology orders increased 10.7% over January 2026 and 27.4% over February 2025.
The total value of 2026 orders through February has reached $930.5 million, 26% above the first two months of 2025.
Demand for manufacturing technology entered a period of recovery in the last quarter of 2024 after nearly three consecutive years of decline.
However, while order values expanded, the total number of units increased at a far slower pace.
This divergence between value and unit trends continues into 2026, with the total number of units ordered roughly flat compared to the first two months of 2025.
This bifurcation can generally be attributed to an increased demand for automation, shifting customer industries, and ongoing market distortions from federal policy and geopolitical disorder.
Contract machine shops, the largest customer of manufacturing technology, increased their value of orders by more than a quarter over the first two months of 2025, while the number of units increased by only a modest single-digit percentage.
Job shops typically increase orders in response to demand for additional capacity, and the number of units ordered closely correlates with the value of those orders.
Conversely, manufacturers of aerospace equipment tend to have outsized order values compared to the number of units ordered because of the highly specialized operations required in their processes.
In the first two months of 2026, aerospace orders were 233% above 2025, and units were 125% higher.
In previous months, as businesses learned to cope with elevated levels of uncertainty and the cost of inaction grew, demand for manufacturing technology increased.
This confident investment in the face of fluctuating policy carried into the first two months of 2026.
However, with the outbreak of war in Iran in the last few days of February, whether businesses will continue to invest at this elevated rate remains to be seen.
On one hand, additional military spending will funnel into an aerospace and defense sector already grappling with capacity constraints, yet further changes to the tariff environment could stall additional investment.
*This article is reprinted from AMT (The Association For Manufacturing Technology).
