A version of the following article appeared in the Wednesday, August 26, 2026, edition of The Charlotte Ledger, an e-newsletter with local business-y news and insights for Charlotte, N.C.
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As Charlotte adds people, jobs and new development, consumer spending is falling flat, new data suggests
Singer Billie Eilish reopened a renovated Spectrum Center to a packed crowd in October 2025, part of what the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority says was a record year for local hospitality spending. Yet Mecklenburg County’s sales tax collections for the year were flat. (Photo courtesy of Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority)
SALES TAX SLOWDOWN
A two-part series from The Charlotte Ledger and WFAE
Today: Why Mecklenburg’s consumer spending has slowed
Thursday: What sluggish sales-tax growth means for transit
by Tony Mecia
In the past 12 months, musicians like Bruno Mars and Billie Eilish played sold-out concerts in Charlotte.
The Census Bureau named Charlotte the fastest-growing city in the country.
Buzzy, expensive restaurants were packed, apartments kept rising, and companies announced thousands of high-paying jobs.
Yet amid the good vibes and positive headlines, there’s one puzzling statistic: Consumer spending in Mecklenburg County appears to be flattening.
The county government told The Ledger this week that it expects its share of sales taxes collected in Mecklenburg to be $414.3M for the 12-month period that ended in June. That’s a touch less than the $414.8M the county collected in the same period in 2024-25.
Mecklenburg County is projecting that its sales tax revenue fell slightly in the fiscal year ending June 30. It is holding steady at about $414M and is the second-largest source of revenue for the county.
State figures show a similar pattern: A Ledger analysis of N.C. Department of Revenue data shows that taxable sales in Mecklenburg were $37.13B in the year ending in June, up 3.1% from a year earlier – or about equal to the rate of inflation in that period. Mecklenburg’s increase was below the state average (4.7%) and slower than any surrounding counties, where spending is growing at a faster clip. The state numbers are considered to be the best local indicators of consumer spending.
While the slowdown in Mecklenburg’s sales tax revenue might seem baffling in a wealthy and fast-growing county, it is not an immediate financial challenge for local governments, which receive money from many other sources – most notably, property taxes.
But it does represent millions of dollars of forgone revenue that could have been used on parks, health care and housing, and could eventually shift more of a burden to property owners to fund the operation of growing local governments.
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