# Canadian manufacturing sales fall 0.4% in July, ending a five-month run of gains

> Sales slipped to $78.7 billion as chemical and food manufacturers sold less, while inventories and unfilled orders reached record highs and capacity use dropped to 80.7%.

- Canonical URL: https://forextradingcommunity.com/news/canada-manufacturing-sales-july-2026/
- Type: Data
- Published: 2026-09-15
- Updated: 2026-09-15
- Publisher: Forex Trading Community (https://forextradingcommunity.com), FTC Editorial Team
- Currencies: CAD

Statistics Canada published its Monthly Survey of Manufacturing for July on Monday 14 September 2026, the same day as the August inflation figures ([CPI report](/news/canada-cpi-august-2026/)).

## The figures

- **Sales**: down 0.4% to $78.7 billion in July, after five consecutive monthly increases
- **Sales in constant dollars**, which remove the effect of price changes: down 1.4%
- **On a year earlier**: sales were up 10.9%

Sales fell further in constant dollars than in current dollars, which means higher prices held up part of the value of what factories sold.

## By industry

- **Chemical products**: down 6.6% to $5.9 billion
- **Food manufacturing**: down 1.4% to $13.9 billion
- **Petroleum and coal products**: up 1.9% to $10.4 billion

## Inventories, orders and capacity

- **Inventories**: up 0.3% to a record $127.5 billion
- **Inventory-to-sales ratio**: 1.62, up from 1.61 in June. The ratio is the number of months it would take to sell current inventories at the current pace of sales.
- **Unfilled orders**: up 1.9% to a record $134.6 billion
- **Capacity utilization**: 80.7%, down from 82.2% in June

## The wider picture for Canada

The survey covers July, a month before the latest labour and price data. Canada lost 42,000 jobs in August ([report](/news/canada-jobs-august-2026/)), and consumer prices rose 3.0% in the year to August, or 2.4% excluding gasoline. The Bank of Canada held its policy rate at 2.25% on 2 September ([report](/news/bank-of-canada-holds-2-25-september-2026/)), and second-quarter GDP figures are in our [earlier report](/news/canada-gdp-second-quarter-2026/).

Factory data rarely moves the Canadian dollar as much as jobs, inflation or oil prices ([oil and the Canadian dollar](/news/oil-prices-and-the-canadian-dollar/)), but it fills in how the economy entered the third quarter. Live prices: [USD/CAD](/markets/usd-cad/).

## Sources

- [Statistics Canada: The Daily, Monthly Survey of Manufacturing, July 2026](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/260914/dq260914b-eng.htm)

## Common questions

### How did Canadian manufacturing sales change in July 2026?

Total manufacturing sales fell 0.4% to $78.7 billion in July 2026, after five consecutive monthly increases, according to Statistics Canada. In constant dollars, sales fell 1.4%.

### What was Canada's manufacturing capacity utilization rate in July 2026?

80.7%, down from 82.2% in June 2026.

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