What the Region Makes

The three jurisdictions produced $1.57 trillion of goods and services in 2025, 5.1% of the national total, with 4.6% of the population. Virginia’s economy is $808B, Maryland’s $567B and the District’s $193B.

The federal government is the difference between this region and every other. Federal civilian agencies and the armed forces produced 28% of the District’s GDP in 2025, 12% of Maryland’s and 8% of Virginia’s; the next highest state is Hawaii at 11%, and the national figure is 3.6%. That share is mostly federal pay. Contractors are counted in the private industries that employ them, and professional and business services, where much contract work is classified, is 24% of the District’s output, 18% of Virginia’s and 14% of Maryland’s against 13% nationally.

Every figure here is from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Bureau of Labor Statistics or the Census Bureau, by state; the District is treated as a state throughout. GDP is where output is produced, income is where people live, and exports are where goods began their journey to the port.

How big, and how fast

What it is made of

Government is the largest single sector in the District at 30% of GDP, down from 36% in 2000 as professional services and finance grew around it. In Maryland and Virginia the largest sector is finance, insurance and real estate, as it is nationally, because that group carries the imputed rent on owner-occupied housing. Manufacturing is 5.3% of Maryland’s output and 7.3% of Virginia’s against 9.5% nationally; in 2000 Virginia’s share was 13.2%, against 15.1% nationally.

The federal share

By output, the federal share of the District’s economy fell from 36% in 1997 to 28% in 2025, with rises in 2002–03, 2008–10 and 2020; since 2010 it has held near 12–13% in Maryland and fallen by two points in Virginia. By jobs, the 2025 annual averages are the first to show the separations of that year: federal employment fell 6.5% in Maryland, 3.9% in the District and 2.9% in Virginia, measured as the average of twelve months against the average of the twelve before. Because the annual average blends January’s level with December’s, the change from the end of 2024 to the end of 2025 is larger; Study VIII counts it month by month.

What the region earns

What the region exports

Goods exports are small here relative to the economy. Virginia shipped $19.1B in 2025 and Maryland $16.6B, $2,152 and $2,643 per resident against $6,308 nationally; both states import far more than they export, $43.6B and $41.4B. Canada is the largest market for both. France is Maryland’s second market and Mexico Virginia’s. Transportation equipment, chemicals and machinery lead Maryland’s manufactured exports; chemicals, electronics and transportation equipment lead Virginia’s.

What would change it

The region’s exposure is arithmetic. Federal civilian value added is 25.1% of the District’s GDP, 10.1% of Maryland’s and 5.5% of Virginia’s (BEA SAGDP2, line 84 ÷ line 1); a tenth of it, computed on the unrounded shares (Virginia’s is 5.47%), equals 2.5%, 1.0% and 0.5% of GDP, and the same tenth is 0.21% of national GDP (2.1% nationally). The figures that would show a change first are the ones in Exhibits 7 and 8, and BEA’s quarterly state GDP, which BEA publishes a quarter after the quarter it covers.

Two things would make the record more useful. BEA could publish federal contract output by state alongside federal payroll, so that the government’s footprint in Northern Virginia and Montgomery County is visible in the accounts rather than inferred from professional services. And Census could publish state exports by state of production as well as origin of movement.