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Fiserv Small Business Index Holds at 145 in August as Sales Rise 1.3%
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Fiserv, Inc. (FISV ) published its Fiserv Small Business Index for August 2026 on September 3, 2026, reporting that U.S. small business sales increased 1.3% year over year while foot traffic declined for the tenth consecutive month. The seasonally adjusted index remained at 145, the company announced, with consumers spending more per visit while making fewer trips.
Overall sales slipped 0.2% compared to July 2026. Average tickets rose 3.0% year over year, helping offset a 1.8% decline in transactions, the number of individual customer purchases the index tracks as a measure of foot traffic.
“For many small business categories, August reinforces a trend we’ve seen throughout much of the year: consumers are still spending, but they’re making fewer trips and becoming more deliberate with their purchases,” said Prasanna Dhore, Chief Data Officer, Fiserv. “With traffic declining and households continuing to prioritize value, each customer visit matters more for small businesses.”
Restaurants and Fuel
Restaurant spending remained largely flat as fewer visits weighed on growth. Sales at Food Services and Drinking Places fell 0.3% year over year but grew 0.3% compared to July. Average tickets in the category rose 2.6% year over year while transactions fell 2.9%.
Within the category, Limited-Service Restaurants saw the steepest decline, with sales down 2.5% year over year as transactions fell 4.2%. Full-Service Restaurants performed better, with sales up 0.9% year over year as visits declined only 0.7%.
Gas Station sales rose 15.1% year over year and 1.4% month over month. Average gas station tickets rose 16.3% year over year, which the company attributed to oil markets continuing to react to geopolitical pressures. Gas station transactions fell 1.2% year over year, a signal, the company stated, that consumers are filling up less often.
Food and Beverage Retailer sales softened, down 1.4% year over year and 1.1% month over month. The company attributed the decline to lower demand and value seeking, which pushed average grocery tickets down 1.2% year over year.
Retail and Spending Categories
Total Retail sales rose 0.6% year over year as foot traffic grew 0.7%. Month over month, retail sales fell 0.8% and foot traffic declined 0.6%. Average tickets have remained nearly flat across Retail this year, the company stated, suggesting that consumers continue to seek value and manage spending despite inflation pressures. Gasoline Stations and Building Materials were the only Retail subsectors with growth over July, while year-over-year growth was broadly achieved across many Retail categories.
Essential categories grew 1.8% year over year, about twice the 0.9% growth in Discretionary spending. The company attributed the gap largely to foot traffic erosion in Discretionary categories, where transactions fell 2.0% year over year, at twice the 1.0% pace of decline in Essentials. Average tickets were up evenly across both areas.
Goods and Services sales each grew 1.3% year over year, but for different reasons, according to the company. Goods growth came primarily from foot traffic growth of 0.7%, while Services growth leaned entirely on higher prices: average tickets for Services grew 3.9% while transactions fell 2.7%.
About the Index
The Fiserv Small Business Index is published in the first week of each month and is based on aggregated consumer spending activity across the U.S. small business economy. Unlike surveys or sentiment data, the index uses point-of-sale data from card, cash and check transactions made in stores and online at approximately 2 million U.S. small businesses, including hundreds of thousands that use the Clover point-of-sale and business management platform.
Benchmarked to 2019, the index measures consumer spending and includes a transaction index that tracks customer traffic. An interface lets users view data by region, state and business type using North American Industry Classification System categories. The index covers 56 standardized level-6 national industries across 26 subsectors and 13 sectors. The full index is available at fiserv.com/FiservSmallBusinessIndex.
Fiserv, a Fortune 500 company and member of the S&P 500 Index, provides payments, account processing, digital banking, merchant acquiring, network services, e-commerce, and Clover, its business management platform, to financial institutions and businesses worldwide.
