The latest data from our colleagues at AMT shows the US market for machine tools easing in November but this follows an exceptional October and it was on-par with the equivalent figure in 2024. There was a similar pattern for cutting tools but in this case, although down on October, the November 2025 figure was +10% higher than last year and the 12-month rolling total is at its highest since the peak in May 2024.
The US Manufacturing Technology Orders (USMTO) programme tracks orders in the US market, based on the reports from participants in the survey. In the first eleven months of 2025 (January to November), total machine tool orders were +17.8% above the level in the same period of 2024 and the rolling-annual total shows growth of +16.5% compared to the previous 12 months.
The AMT press release focuses mainly on the month-on-month reduction in orders but points out that despite this, the November 2025 total is 26% higher than the long-run average for the month, so cannot really be regarded as a bad figure. Even without the December figures, the total for 2025 is already ahead of the 2024 numbers by nearly 5%.
There was strong growth in 5 of the 6 regions that are reported in the survey; this was led by the West (+40%) and South-Central (+39%) areas but growth in the South-East (+20%), North-East (+14%) and North-Central-East (+10%) is also significant. The one exception is the North-Central-West area where machine tool orders are -1% lower than in 2024.
The US Cutting Tool Market Report (CTMR) tracks orders for tooling on a similar basis, except it uses shipments rather than orders (there is little difference in these measures for tooling). As with machine tools, October was an exceptionally strong month, so the fall in November is not entirely surprising; the latest value is still +10% higher than a year ago, putting this part of the market on track to at match the 2024 total, despite a weak first half of the year.
The report notes the impact of rising prices for carbide and HSS materials and suggests that the growth in the market (measured in this report by US$ values) is due to the resulting price increases rather than larger volumes.
You can download the press releases for the two surveys from the AMT web-site at https://www.amtonline.org/topic/intelligence, with the CTMR release also published on the USCTI web-site at www.uscti.com (go to the News tab); alternatively, you can request either or both releases from MTA and we can make sure you get them when they are published each month.