Blaine’s sales tax collections may appear to be running ahead of last year at first glance, but when adjusted for inflation, they tell a different story.
The city collected $912,054 in sales tax through May 2026, compared with $879,869 during the same period last year, an increase of about 3.7%.
But after adjusting last year’s collections for inflation using the 4.5% rate in a sales-tax analysis provided by Blaine Finance Director Jennifer Heiner, the 2025 figure rises to about $919,463 in 2026 dollars.
That puts this year’s collections about 0.8% below last year’s inflation-adjusted level.
The numbers suggest that while consumers are spending more dollars in Blaine, the growth has not quite kept pace with rising prices.
The weakness is particularly visible in two sectors closely connected with consumer and visitor spending:
Retail trade, by far the city’s largest source of sales tax, generated $360,649 through May, down 7.1% from $388,163 during the same period last year. Retail accounted for nearly 40% of Blaine’s sales tax collections.
Accommodation and food services also declined. The sector generated $106,301 through May, compared with $110,788 a year earlier, a 4.1% drop.
Those declines were offset by gains elsewhere. Construction rose 7.8% to $166,908, while miscellaneous services jumped 41.2% to $87,548. Information, manufacturing and transportation and warehousing also posted double-digit increases.
The inflation-adjusted comparison also changes the picture of Blaine’s recovery over several years.
The city’s reports show $907,481 collected through May 2023, $881,666 in 2024 and $879,869 in 2025.
The accompanying analysis adjusts those earlier figures for inflation and also adds back a $43,449 manufacturing clawback in the 2024 comparison. On that basis, 2026 collections remain below comparable inflation-adjusted totals for each of the previous three years.
The contrast is especially striking with 2023, Heiner said. Blaine collected about $907,000 through May that year — slightly less than the $912,054 collected this year in nominal dollars. But adjusted to 2026 purchasing power using the analysis’ inflation assumptions, the 2023 total is roughly $1.01 million.
That would put current collections roughly 9% below the 2023 level in real terms.
One anticipated economic boost is conspicuously absent from the numbers — but that’s because it is too early for it to appear.
The FIFA World Cup began June 11 and brought matches to both sides of the border. Vancouver hosted seven matches, while Seattle hosted six, including the U.S. team’s June 19 match against Australia.
Blaine sits directly between the two host cities and was positioned to potentially capture some of the cross-border traffic associated with the tournament.
But the city’s sales-tax reports have a built-in lag. Heiner notes on each report that sales tax is received two months after it is reported, with January collections arriving in March.
That means the May figures in the latest report largely represent sales activity from March — months before the first World Cup match. The tournament’s June spending should begin showing up in city tax receipts around August, with July activity appearing around September.
Those reports will provide the first real test of whether tens of thousands of soccer fans traveling to Vancouver and Seattle translated into additional spending in Blaine.
Kari Mar is the publisher of The Northern Light.
