Tariff-exposed industries with significant fuel, freight, and industrial-energy requirements experienced the clearest pressure on profitability following tariff actions in 2025, even when their sales trends remained resilient, according to analysis by Abrigo, a provider of risk management and lending software for U.S. financial institutions.
The study, based on private-company financial statements in Abrigo Connect, examined 17 selected industries with tariff exposure, comparing a 2024 pre-tariff baseline with 2025 results. The analysis found that in several industries, median sales-growth rates improved while median gross profit margins declined, suggesting cost pressures may have absorbed gains that otherwise would have supported profitability.
“Small businesses typically have less margin to absorb the impact that tariffs may have on their input costs,” said Rob Newberry, an Abrigo Senior Consultant. “That can create larger year-over-year swings in financial performance, and some may require additional funding until businesses can pass those increases on to customers.”
To distinguish tariff-related cost pressure from broader fuel and energy pressures, Abrigo grouped the industries into three cohorts. One cohort included import-reliant industries with relatively lower energy intensity, such as computer and electronic product manufacturing and merchant wholesalers of durable goods. A second cohort included 10 industries with both tariff-sensitive inputs and meaningful energy or transportation costs, such as fabricated metals, food manufacturing, construction, and restaurants. And a third cohort included industries with tariff exposure plus high fuel, freight, or industrial-energy requirements: primary metal manufacturing, heavy and civil engineering construction, truck transportation, and warehousing and storage.
The four individual industries with the greatest combined exposure to tariffs and energy-related costs recorded a median 3.1-percentage-point improvement in sales-growth rates alongside a 166.3-basis-point decline in gross margins, the sharpest cohort-level divergence in the study. Primary metal manufacturing recorded the sharpest margin contraction, down 583.1 basis points, even as its sales-growth rate improved 6.7 percentage points. Truck transportation showed a similar pattern, with sales growth up 3.0 percentage points and margins down 332.7 basis points.
The research drew on Abrigo Connect, the company’s banking intelligence solution, which includes nearly 2 million private-company financial statements across 1,400 industries categorized under the North American Industry Classification System and more than 80 financial data points. The study focused on U.S. businesses with less than $50 million in sales, offering a view into privately held borrowers that may not be reflected in public-company research or survey-based tariff studies.
