Compare State Economies With Consistent GDP Data

For a comparable U.S. GDP per state table, use annual, current-dollar GDP for one year to measure economic size. Use real GDP growth to compare changes in output, and GDP per capita to compare output per resident. The 2025 examples below show California at $4,297.45 billion, Texas at $2,932.34 billion, and New York at $2,465.75 billion; these three observations are not a complete state ranking.

Choose two states from the excerpt to compare their 2025 nominal GDP.

Choose the Measure That Answers Your Question

The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) defines GDP by state as the market value of goods and services produced by labor and property located in a state. It measures production, not residents’ household income. BEA’s definitions distinguish nominal GDP from inflation-adjusted real GDP.

Comparison	Measure	Required Label
Economic size	Current-dollar, or nominal, GDP	Year and dollar unit
Output growth	Percent change in real GDP	Period; whether annualized
Output per resident	GDP divided by population	GDP basis; population year and source

GDP per capita is output per resident, not average pay or disposable income. To calculate it from GDP in millions of dollars, multiply GDP by 1,000,000 and divide by the population count. Match the population year to the GDP year. No population figures are supplied here, so the example does not calculate GDP per capita.

Real GDP adjusts for price changes over time, but BEA says state real GDP does not capture geographic differences in prices for goods and services produced and sold locally. It is not a cost-of-living-adjusted income measure.

As of October 4, 2026, BEA’s annual GDP-by-state tables extend through 2025. The latest quarterly release covers 2026 Q2 and was issued September 30, 2026. A full-year 2025 comparison and a quarterly 2026 comparison are different datasets.

Download One Consistent BEA Release

Start at BEA’s GDP by State page, which links to interactive tables and downloadable data. For a spreadsheet workflow, BEA also provides regional CSV files in ZIP archives.

Select the annual GDP-by-state table SAGDP2 for nominal GDP or SAGDP9 for real GDP. Both appear in BEA’s table availability directory. For an economic-size comparison, retain the all-industry total rather than an individual industry.

Use one release for the entire comparison. BEA’s September 30, 2026 release included annual updates to state GDP. Its release notes warn that linked tables will show newer values after subsequent releases. Save the downloaded source file alongside your cleaned version so the published comparison remains traceable to its release.

Keep Source Values Separate From Display Values

For a single-year publication file, use fields such as state, year, gdp_current_usd_millions and gdp_current_usd_billions.

The following three-row excerpt is a real-data example, not a complete state ranking. These annual BEA observations were retrieved through FRED; the series carry a September 30, 2026 update date.

State	Year	GDP, USD Millions	GDP, USD Billions
California	2025	4,297,449.8	4,297.45
Texas	2025	2,932,343.6	2,932.34
New York	2025	2,465,749.3	2,465.75

Keep the source-scale values in the file. Calculate the display column as GDP in billions = GDP in millions / 1,000.

Store amounts as numbers, without dollar signs, thousands separators or suffixes such as T. Round for display only. The comparison tool uses the millions-of-dollars values to calculate differences before rounding its results.

For multiple years, use one row per state-year so the year remains an explicit field. Do not put several years into an unlabeled amount column.

Validate Geography, Units and Ranking Scope

A state-only comparison should contain 50 state rows. Including the District of Columbia gives 51 jurisdictions. State which scope you chose, and remove U.S. and regional totals so they do not become additional “states.”

Each state-year should appear once in an all-industry table. Duplicate rows can arise when a download includes multiple industries or when files from different releases are combined; retain the intended all-industry observation from the chosen release.

Keep millions, billions, current dollars and chained dollars distinct. Preserve missingness: a blank or source suppression marker is not zero. A numeric zero would change sorting, totals and any derived comparison.

If adding a rank, calculate it from unrounded values and disclose the direction and treatment of ties. A rank calculated from this three-state excerpt would describe only those three states, not their positions among all states. See public ranking table disclosures.

Label Quarterly Growth as Annualized Growth

A quarterly real-GDP growth figure is not an annual GDP total. BEA annualizes quarter-to-quarter changes: it reports the rate that would result if that quarterly pattern repeated for four quarters, as described in its statistical conventions.

For example, the September 30 release reported New York’s 4.0% real-GDP growth in 2026 Q2 as an annualized change from the preceding quarter. It was not 4.0% growth during those three months or a full-year 2026 result.

Keep that growth figure separate from the annual nominal-GDP amounts above. Its period, price basis and unit all differ.

Also avoid summing real, chained-dollar components into a homemade total. BEA states that chained-dollar values are not additive; use its published totals instead.

Publish the Table With Its Source and Scope

Export the reviewed data as CSV or XLSX. TablePage supports those formats and generates a public dataset page with a shareable link and filterable table. Upload only the public comparison file—not a workbook containing private notes or unrelated sensitive data.

For a complete 50-state file drawn from the specified release, a source note could read:

U.S. GDP by state, 2025. All-industry nominal GDP in billions of current U.S. dollars. Source: BEA, September 30, 2026 release; retrieved October 4, 2026. Geography: 50 states, excluding the District of Columbia. Display values rounded; estimates subject to revision.

Match the note to the actual file. A page containing only California, Texas and New York must say it is a three-state excerpt, not a 50-state comparison. Change the release, retrieval date and geography when they differ.

Inspect the published page to confirm that amounts were recognized as numbers, the year is visible, filters retain the intended scope, and chart labels use the same units as the table.