“We see this report and future reports as a way of providing meaningful industry shipment information,” said ARMA Executive Vice President Reed Hitchcock.

Single-Family Starts Decline

The first-half shipment decline broadly tracked weaker single-family home construction. U.S. Census Bureau data show single-family housing starts declined 5.3% during the first six months of 2026 compared with the same period last year. Overall housing starts increased 0.5%, however, as starts in buildings with five or more units rose 17%. The contrast is significant for asphalt roofing because detached single-family homes typically represent a more shingle-intensive market than large multifamily buildings.

Dodge Construction Network reported a similar residential slowdown using its construction-starts data. Residential starts declined 3.5% by value through June, including a 7.5% decrease in single-family starts. Multifamily starts increased 3.7%. Construction starts and material shipments measure different stages of the building cycle, so the figures should be viewed as directional context rather than a direct measure of roofing demand.

Modified Bitumen Shipments Increase

U.S. modified bitumen shipments increased 11.4% year over year, from 11,221,675 squares in the second quarter of 2025 to 12,497,481 squares in the second quarter of 2026. Through the first six months of 2026, shipments totaled 21,634,339 squares, compared with 21,718,267 squares during the same period in 2025, a decline of 0.4%.

The stronger quarterly result came amid continued growth in portions of the nonresidential construction market. Dodge reported nonresidential building starts increased 6.2% by value through June, led by a 17.9% increase in commercial and industrial construction. Institutional starts declined 7.3%. The nonresidential figures provide broad context for low-slope roofing demand, although project starts do not necessarily translate immediately into roofing-material shipments.

BUR Shipments Continue to Fall

Shipments of built-up roofing base, ply and mineral cap sheets totaled 940,158 squares in the second quarter, down 15.6% from 1,114,346 squares a year earlier. Year-to-date BUR shipments declined 16.1%, from 2,116,022 squares in 2025 to 1,774,718 squares in 2026. The continued decline contrasts with the broader increase in commercial and industrial construction starts, suggesting growth in total nonresidential activity is not being distributed evenly among roofing product categories.

Remodeling Growth Expected to Slow

The outlook for residential replacement and remodeling demand also remains restrained. The Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies’ latest Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity projects year-over-year growth in homeowner improvement and repair spending will slow to 0.5% by the second quarter of 2027. Spending is projected to total $519 billion through mid-2027.

Harvard cited flattening remodeling permits and building-product retail sales, reduced housing starts, low home sales and broader economic uncertainty as factors limiting growth. The forecast covers all improvements and repairs to owner-occupied homes and is not specific to roofing.

Canadian Shingle Shipments Fall 20.8%

Canadian shingle shipments fell 20.8%, from 3,245,046 squares in the second quarter of 2025 to 2,570,469 squares in the second quarter of 2026. Through June, Canadian shingle shipments totaled 5,761,130 squares, down 15.7% from 6,831,419 squares during the same period in 2025. The shipment decline was considerably steeper than the contraction in Canadian housing construction.

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. reported 113,017 housing starts through June, down 1% from the first half of 2025. Actual starts in communities with populations of at least 10,000 fell 13% year over year in June, while CMHC’s six-month trend measure declined 2.8% from May. The difference indicates that weaker new-home construction alone may not fully explain the Canadian shipment decline.

Shipment timing, inventories, product mix and reroofing activity could also influence the totals, although ARMA’s report does not provide enough detail to determine the cause.

ARMA said its shipment data is collected from participating manufacturers by Industry Insights, an independent third party, and aggregated to create the quarterly report.