Data published by AMT – The Association for Manufacturing Technology – indicates that new orders for machine tools in August 2025 were +36.2% higher in value compared to July 2025. In contrast, demand for cutting tools declined by -2.7% over the same period. Machine tool orders in August were valued at $529.4 million, while the cutting tool market reached $210.6 million.
Since January 1998, only 29 months have seen machine tool orders exceed $500 million, nearly half of which (44.8%) have occurred since June 2021. This highlights the sustained resilience of the U.S. manufacturing sector following the pandemic-induced recession of 2020, despite persistent uncertainty and economic headwinds.
Cumulative machine tool orders for the first eight months of 2025 totalled $3.44 billion, representing a +18.3% increase over the same period in 2024.
Regionally, five of six areas recorded higher order values than during the first eight months of 2024. The South-Central (+45.6%) and West (+43.6%) regions led growth, followed by solid gains in the North-Central-East (+17.1%), and more moderate increases in the South-East (+10.8%) and North-East (+7%). The North-Central-West (-0.6%) was the only region to see a decline.
The U.S. Cutting Tool Market Report (CTMR), which tracks shipments on a similar basis to the machine tool survey, showed total shipments of $210.6 million in August 2025 – a 2.7% decline from July 2025 and 1.8% lower than in August 2024. The report notes that ongoing uncertainty surrounding tariffs continues to dampen short-term confidence and investment in the sector. You can download press releases for both the USMTO and CTMR reports from the AMT web-site at https://www.amtonline.org/topic/intelligence; alternatively, you can request either or both releases from MTA and we can make sure you get them when they are published each month.