Uruguay, October 2026: An Import High That Oil Does Not Explain, Milk Powder's Biggest Month Since 2016, and U.S. Crude

Bottom line: Uruguay's imports reached US$1.43 billion in October 2026, the highest month since January 2016. A U.S. crude cargo explains the rise from September, but the rise from October 2025 came from everything except fuel, led by cars. Exports fell 10.8% to US$894 million as soybean shipments dwindled, even as milk powder had its biggest month since 2016, and the monthly deficit widened to US$540 million.

Desk: Claudio, Uruguay. Dataset: Uruguay customs (DNA) declarations (DUA), imports at customs value (about CIF) by origin and exports at FOB by destination. Period: October 2026, the latest complete month. Vintage: release v2026.11.02, computed files dated 11 November 2026; earlier months were revised (September 2026 now shows US$1,377.5 million of imports and US$1,002.0 million of exports). One provisional electricity import declaration (US$15.0 million) is excluded, per the CargoFax anomaly register. Exports from free zones (most pulp) are not in this data; shipments into free zones count as exports. Transit is separate and never included.

Key findings

• Imports were US$1.43 billion in October 2026, the highest month since January 2016 (previous high: March 2026, US$1.40 billion), up 4.1% from September and 10.3% from October 2025. Exports fell 10.8% from September to US$893.7 million, 1.3% below October 2025, and the deficit widened to US$540.4 million from US$375.4 million in September.
• Crude explains the step from September: two U.S. cargoes worth US$225.5 million, declared at US$842 a tonne (US$543 a year earlier), account for US$54.9 million of the US$56.6 million rise.
• Fuel does not explain the rise from a year earlier: fuel imports (HS 27) were 2.4% lower than in October 2025, while non-fuel imports reached US$1.20 billion, up 13.3% and the highest since January 2016, led by cars.
• Milk powder exports (HS 0402) reached US$98.4 million, the highest since January 2016, up 31.5% from October 2025 on 39.3% more tonnes at a 5.6% lower value per tonne.
• Uruguay now buys more from the United States than it sells there: a US$184.5 million deficit from January to October 2026, after a US$89.1 million surplus in the same months of 2025.

The numbers

From January to October, the deficit in this customs data widened to US$2.46 billion from US$1.28 billion.

Imports have been above US$1.3 billion in three of the last four months, while exports fell back to their lowest level since April.

Why did imports reach a high since 2016 when the fuel bill was lower than a year earlier?

Fuel is Uruguay's largest import line: crude oil in cargoes of about 70,000 to 140,000 tonnes and, in some months, refined fuel. Monthly imports ran between US$915 million and US$1.30 billion in 2025; four months of 2026 have gone above that range, and October is the highest.

The step from September was crude. Imports rose US$56.6 million, and crude (HS 2709) accounts for US$54.9 million of it: two U.S. cargoes of about 134,000 tonnes each, worth US$225.5 million. It is a price story. The cargoes were declared at US$842 a tonne, against US$744 in September and US$543 in October 2025, on 8.4% more tonnes than a year earlier. Brent averaged US$125.0 a barrel in October against US$64.7 a year earlier (World Bank), as fighting escalated in the Middle East: oil broke above US$100 in September for the first time in months, CNBC reported, and hit a five-month high on 22 October after Houthi attacks in Saudi Arabia, Reuters reported, via The Star.

Against October 2025, that explanation stops working. Fuel imports (HS 27) were US$238.8 million, 2.4% less than a year earlier on 26.6% fewer tonnes, because in October 2025 Uruguay also bought US$99.1 million of refined fuels, mostly diesel and gasoline, against US$5.1 million this October. Customs data does not say why; August 2025 had no crude cargo at all.

So the high came from everything else: non-fuel imports reached US$1.20 billion, the highest since January 2016, up 13.3% from US$1.06 billion on only 3.1% more tonnes.

• Cars (HS 8703) added US$46.9 million, to US$130.7 million, a fourth monthly rise and the highest since January 2016.
• Pharmaceuticals and machinery added US$19.5 million (mostly vaccines and blood products) and US$19.3 million.
• Cereals added US$17.6 million, almost all Paraguayan grain maize (93,600 tonnes against 19,100). The drought also hit Uruguay's own maize (Prensa Latina), and Paraguay's harvest ran late, into August to October (Tardáguila Agromercados). From January to October, grain maize imports were 345,500 tonnes, more than three times the 106,400 of 2025.
• Sulphur added US$16.5 million: one U.S. cargo of about 13,200 tonnes at about US$1,255 a tonne, three to six times what the same importer paid in 2025. Customs data records the price, not its cause.
• Meat added US$11.2 million, mostly Brazilian beef at about US$7.14 a kilo (US$5.70 a year earlier). Brazilian steers were about 25% cheaper than Uruguay's in July (Blasina y Asociados), and Uruguayan steers reached US$6 a kilo carcass weight for the first time in late October (El Observador).

Fertilizers (down US$14.9 million) and electrical equipment (down US$12.5 million) pulled the other way.

Cars matter for January. Last month's edition read September's electric car jump as stock building before the IMESI tax due from 1 January 2027 on electric cars above US$19,000 (5% up to US$27,000 and 9% above, El Observador), and said premium arrivals should stay high if that was right. They did. Cars declared above US$27,000 rose to 1,447 from 1,023 in September and 73 in August, while the exempt band fell to 2,306 from 3,561 in August. Car units rose 20.2% from October 2025 and car value 55.8%. The Ministry of Economy weighed a short delay in early October (Búsqueda), but on 20 October the minister ruled out any flexibility, El Telégrafo reported, noting that importers had sped up electric arrivals.

The Catholic University of Uruguay's international business institute (INI) also reads the rise as possible early buying, Reporte Asia reported. The nuance: declared value per car only approximates the decree's CIF test, and both October crude declarations are still original filings that may be amended.

What the data shows: October beat September because of one expensive crude cargo, but it beat October 2025 because Uruguay bought more of almost everything else, led by cars tilting toward the band the new tax will hit hardest. The data shows timing and price mix, not importers' intent.

Why did Uruguay ship more milk powder than in any month since 2016?

Milk powder (HS 0402) is Uruguay's main dairy export. In 2025 it ran between US$45 million and US$75 million a month, mostly whole milk powder, with Algeria and Brazil the largest buyers. In October 2026 it reached US$98.4 million and 27.1 thousand tonnes, the highest since January 2016 by value and weight, up from US$61.5 million in September and US$74.9 million in October 2025. Dairy as a whole (HS 04) reached US$117.1 million, also the highest since 2016.

It is volume at lower prices: tonnes rose 39.3% from October 2025 while value per tonne fell 5.6% to about US$3,636. From January to October, 165.6 thousand tonnes (up 9.9%) earned US$603.5 million (up 2.1%).

More milk is one reason. September's deliveries to dairy plants were the largest for any September on record, the 14th monthly rise in a row, El Observador reported, and the dairy institute INALE linked the record 2025/26 output to good weather and favourable milk prices relative to costs (El Observador). Prices are lower: whole milk powder sold at US$3,605 a tonne at the 6 October Global Dairy Trade auction, slightly below a year earlier (El Observador).

The buyers explain the timing. Algeria, the largest buyer in 2025, returned to US$27.3 million (7,537 tonnes) after US$8.9 million (2,431 tonnes) in September, still below US$34.9 million a year earlier; its slump had been put down partly to logistics and ship availability rather than lost demand (eDairyNews). Brazil took US$26.1 million (US$19.4 million), and smaller buyers grew fastest: Nigeria US$8.3 million (US$1.3 million), Mexico US$7.2 million (US$0.4 million) and Venezuela US$3.6 million (US$0.8 million). Uruguay XXI reported the same pattern for all dairy: US$118 million, up 21%, on 28% more tonnes at a price about 6% lower.

What the data shows: Uruguay shipped more milk powder in October than in any month in this data, at lower prices and to more buyers, as milk output grew and Algeria returned. Brazil, not Algeria, is the largest buyer for the year, and Algeria's large lots make the monthly total swing.

Trade with the U.S.

Uruguay's own customs data: imports from the United States were US$292.7 million in October, the highest since January 2024, against US$157.5 million in September and US$125.6 million in October 2025. Exports to the United States were US$122.2 million (US$130.5 million in September), up 33.9% from October 2025 and 13.7% of all exports.

Crude and the sulphur cargo made up 82.7% of October's imports from the United States. Frozen beef led exports, about US$7.90 a kilo against US$6.40 a year earlier on almost the same tonnage, and the United States led Uruguay's beef export revenue from January to October, US$700.1 million to China's US$680.3 million, Ámbito reported.

Over those ten months, Uruguay bought US$1.30 billion from the United States (up 38.9%) and sold it US$1.11 billion (up 8.7%), turning a surplus into a deficit. Crude is most of the difference: the United States supplied 48.7% of crude imports by value, against 38.6% a year earlier, although the state oil company reports buying more Argentine Medanito than U.S. WTI (Búsqueda); purchase shares and customs arrivals measure different things.

Official U.S. Census data: the September release, published on 4 November, shows U.S. exports to Uruguay of US$368.9 million (US$104.8 million in September 2025) and U.S. imports from Uruguay of US$142.4 million (US$117.8 million). The jump most likely includes the two crude cargoes Uruguay recorded arriving in October, since the Census counts goods when they leave. U.S. imports also include pulp shipped from Uruguay's free zones, which the DUA data does not cover.

Policy: since 24 July the United States has applied an extra 12.5% tariff to most Uruguayan goods (MercoPress), with beef, pulp, wood and oranges outside it (El Cronista). Uruguay was left out of a temporary U.S. quota of 300,000 tonnes of duty-free lean beef trimmings for September to November because it already holds its own quota (MercoPress). Beef sales grew anyway.

What the data shows: Uruguay's trade with the United States has tipped into deficit this year because the U.S. became its largest crude supplier, while beef sales to the U.S. keep rising at higher prices per kilo.

Verification notes

Every figure was checked against the CargoFax anomaly register for October 2026 (16 entries, none pending).

• Logs and wood (unexplained; not used). Log exports (HS 4403) of US$133.0 million and wood (HS 44) of US$174.7 million would read as the highest since January 2016, but US$116.7 million of it is free-zone log declarations (codes 981, 986, 987) still at original values with round or repeated quantities, such as 500,000 tonnes to code 981 at exactly US$39,902,000 in both September and October. Every such line from January to August 2026 was amended one to two months later, and October's total is 51% above the highest amended month of 2026 (US$77.1 million). They stay in the totals, but October's exports are likely to be revised. No public figure confirms or contradicts them (searched: pulp mills' wood use; Uruguay XXI's October report).
• Electricity exports (unexplained; filing gap). No electricity export declaration is dated October, against US$9.8 million in September, though exports continued (355 GWh to Argentina in September, per the UCU power-sector monitor). Earlier gaps were filled by sets dated early the next month, so October's should appear in November. Searches: "Uruguay exportación energía eléctrica Argentina Brasil octubre 2026 UTE ADME"; "Monitor mensual del sector eléctrico UCU 2026 exportaciones GWh".
• Electricity import (contradicted; excluded). A declaration from Argentina at exactly US$15,000,000 repeats September's provisional filing, since amended to zero; the UCU monitor reports no electricity imports. October imports are the highest since January 2016 with or without it.
• Undecoded destinations (unexplained). US$34.7 million (3.9%) of exports went to codes 987 (US$30.3 million, mostly logs and pulp-mill inputs), 985 (US$2.9 million, mostly medicines by air) and four smaller codes; they stay "Other or unspecified" until customs confirms them.
• Explained, real trade: the sulphur cargo (normal tonnage at 2026 prices); 131 automatic banknote dispensers from Germany (US$1.75 million); seed maize at a normal seed price, with seed imports up 84% by mid-August (El Observador); 23,019 mink pelts to the United States, a seasonal shipment; used harvesters to Argentina (US$1.04 million); a gasoline cargo to Argentina (US$8.8 million), confirmed by Uruguay XXI; and repeated lines that are separate declarations at contract prices (sulphuric acid, cigarettes, PVC compound).
• Revisions. September's crude now stands at US$170.6 million after amendment, against US$164 million in last month's edition. Resins (HS 3907) fell back to US$3.7 million after an unusually large September.

What to watch

• Mid-December 2026: November customs data, with amendments to October's free-zone log declarations and, probably, October's electricity exports.
• November and December 2026: whether premium electric arrivals stay high before the IMESI starts on 1 January, as the pull-forward reading implies.
• 8 December 2026: the U.S. Census October release, to see whether September's U.S. exports were the whole mirror of October's crude arrivals.
• The next crude cargoes: whether the declared price stays near US$842 a tonne and the cargoes keep coming from the United States.
• Late November 2026: INALE's October milk delivery figures.

Methodology and data notes

Figures come from CargoFax's processing of Uruguay's DUA customs declarations (Dirección Nacional de Aduanas), release v2026.11.02, reconciled exactly to the computed files behind the public Uruguay monthly report (data updated 11 November 2026). Weights are declared net weight. Fuel is HS chapter 27 and non-fuel imports are everything else; milk powder is HS 0402; electric cars are NCM 870380, counted in declared physical units, with value bands from each line's customs value divided by its units. Brent prices are World Bank Pink Sheet monthly averages. "Highest since January 2016" refers to the start of this dataset. Lines classified as contradicted in the anomaly register are excluded from all figures; unexplained items appear only in Verification notes. U.S. Census figures to August 2026 come from CargoFax's Census files (retrieved 19 October 2026), and September 2026 from the Census Bureau's FT-900 release, Exhibit 4 (not seasonally adjusted). No importer or exporter is named; companies appear only as public sources name them. Transit is a separate flow and is not in any figure.

Sources

Every link on this page passed the verification gate (live article, date in window, quote found, archived). Tier 1: Bloomberg, WSJ, Reuters, FT. Tier 2: other highly relevant sources (trade press, government, company releases, local press).

Tier 1

No Tier 1 source on this page.

Tier 2

• Tier 2 CNBC. Saudi Arabia shut down East-West crude oil pipeline after multiple attacks by drones from Iraq. 2026-09-11 archive
• Tier 2 The Star. Oil hits five-month high as Houthi attacks fuel supply fears. 2026-10-23 archive
• Tier 2 Noticias Prensa Latina. Sequía afectó cultivos de verano en Uruguay. 2026-08-10 archive
• Tier 2 tardaguila.uy. Agricultura. 2026-07-03 archive
• Tier 2 Blasina y Asociados. Uruguay importó 19% más carne vacuna en el primer semestre. 2026-07-08 archive
• Tier 2 El Observador. Sube la faena de vacunos y el precio de los novillos marcó un nuevo récord. 2026-10-30 archive
• Tier 2 El Observador. Gerente de ACAU afirmó que impuesto a los autos eléctricos tiene un fin recaudatorio y que afecta a vehículos de gama media. 2026-07-01 archive
• Tier 2 Búsqueda. El Ministerio de Economía analiza aplazar imposición con Imesi a los vehículos eléctricos. 2026-10-01 archive
• Tier 2 Diario El Telégrafo. El Gobierno confirma que el nuevo esquema del Imesi para autos eléctricos regirá desde enero. 2026-10-21 archive
• Tier 2 Reporte Asia. China domina el boom de autos eléctricos en Uruguay. 2026-10-21 archive
• Tier 2 El Observador. Remisión de leche desde los tambos a la industria tuvo el mejor setiembre de la historia. 2026-10-27 archive
• Tier 2 El Observador. Inale destacó el crecimiento en la producción de leche, en la cantidad de vacas y su productividad. 2026-09-24 archive
• Tier 2 El Observador. Lácteos reaccionaron en el mercado internacional y volvieron a ganar precio. 2026-10-06 archive
• Tier 2 Edairy News Español. Uruguay Exporta Más Lácteos En 2026, Pero Factura Menos: Brasil Crece Y Argelia Se Desploma. 2026-10-06 archive
• Tier 2 uruguayxxi.gub.uy. www.uruguayxxi.gub.uy. 2026-11-03 archive
• Tier 2 ámbito.com. Estados Unidos vuelve a ser el principal destino de la carne uruguaya. 2026-11-03 archive
• Tier 2 Búsqueda. Ancap amplía herramientas para amortiguar volatilidad del precio del crudo y diseña gobernanza. 2026-10-15 archive
• Tier 2 MercoPress. Uruguay faces a 12.5% US tariff as its foreign ministry weighs the implications. 2026-07-24 archive
• Tier 2 El Cronista. MEF afirma que nuevos aranceles de EEUU no alcanzan al 75% de exportaciones. 2026-07-25 archive
• Tier 2 MercoPress. The US waives beef tariffs for Brazil and Paraguay, but not for Argentina and Uruguay. 2026-08-28 archive
• Tier 2 www.ucu.edu.uy. Microsoft PowerPoint - Monitor Setiembre 2026_FB. 2026-10-27 archive
• Tier 2 El Observador. Camino a una siembra histórica de maíz: por qué se avizora una campaña como nunca antes. 2026-08-17 archive

Data sources

• U.S. Census Bureau. U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services, September 2026 (FT-900), Exhibit 4. 4 November 2026.