How much inventory did companies actually build ahead of tariffs?

Updated Sun, May 11, 2025, 7:09 AM 14 min read

A version of this post first appeared on TKer.co

A big economic question right now: To what degree does today’s economic activity reflect a pull forward of purchases that would’ve occurred further down the road?

One of the actions some companies have taken to mitigate the impact of future tariffs has been to pulling forward expected future purchases and stockpiling goods before costs go up.

Various anecdotes from companies and a spike in imports at the beginning of this year suggest this pull-forward could be significant. Here are some notable quotes from Q1 earnings season:

“Our clients are getting ready. We're seeing some accelerating of imports to stockpile inventories.” - Citigroup

“Looking outside the U.S., demand for U.S. inbound services surged as customers pull forward inventory purchases ahead of expected tariff changes.” - UPS

“For transparency, you will see that we did build ahead inventory, and that's reflected in our manufacturing purchase obligations that you'll see on the quarterly filing when it comes out.“ - Apple

“We've done some forward buys of inventory where we're the first-party seller. Our third-party sellers have pulled forward a number of items, so they have inventory here as well.” - Amazon

“We built some inventory where possible in certain items as we anticipate that to happen. So that gives a little relief of amounts needed to in some of the items. But the impact should be mostly concentrated in the second half.” - Kraft Heinz

“As a precaution, we've taken steps to build inventory in certain markets to mitigate potential tariff impact in the short term.“ - WD-40

So how much extra stuff did companies stockpile?

Different analysts will give you different answers.

Deutsche Bank’s Binky Chadha analyzed the data to estimate how much extra inventory companies have accumulated.

It’s not much.

“In clear evidence of pre-buying, goods imports surged in Q1, especially in March, but relative to the prior run rate of $275bn a month, we estimate the excess imports over the last 3 months were about $190bn, or around 3 weeks extra,“ Chadha wrote in his May 2 research note.

The way companies manage inventory has changed in recent years.

“Companies typically maintain about 3 months of inventory,” Chadha wrote. “They have been raising that buffer over the last 10 years, especially since the COVID pandemic supply chain disruptions, and the lowest levels in the last 10 years have been about 2 months, which suggests companies could run their buffers down for a month at most in hopes for a tariff reprieve.”