US ADP Employment Report: 2026 Schedule, Dates and What to Expect

The US ADP Employment Report is a monthly estimate of how many jobs private-sector employers in the United States added or cut, produced by ADP Research in collaboration with the Stanford Digital Economy Lab and built from the anonymised payroll records of more than 26 million American employees. It is published monthly, usually on a Wednesday, at 8:15 am ET (1:15 pm London), and the next release is due on Wednesday, September 2, 2026. Because ADP processes real payslips rather than surveying firms, the report lands before the official government jobs figures and is widely used as an early read on the American labour market. This page carries the full schedule below, plus an ICS and Google Calendar feed so you can subscribe and get every ADP release date in your own diary automatically.

Traders watch this release because the US labour market sits at the centre of Federal Reserve interest rate decisions, and Fed decisions move borrowing costs, currencies and share prices worldwide. Related schedules: US Jobs Report dates and US CPI report dates.

2026 schedule

Every confirmed ADP Employment Report date is listed below, with the release time in US Eastern Time. Each report covers the month before its publication date, so the September 2, 2026 release measures private payrolls in August 2026. Dates shift by one week in months where the first Wednesday falls too close to the start of the month for ADP to complete its data processing.

EDT means Eastern Daylight Time, which is four hours behind London in the summer; EST means Eastern Standard Time, five hours behind London in the winter. In both cases 8:15 am ET equals 1:15 pm in London.

What is the ADP Employment Report?

ADP is one of the largest payroll processing companies in the world. When an American employer pays its staff through ADP, that transaction creates a record of how many people were on the payroll that week and how much they were paid. ADP Research aggregates and anonymises those records and turns them into a monthly estimate of the change in private-sector employment across the United States, broken down by industry, by company size and by region.

The headline number is a single figure: the change in private payrolls compared with the previous month, in thousands of jobs. A reading of 100,000 means private employers added about 100,000 net jobs. Negative readings mean employment fell. The report excludes government jobs entirely, which is one reason it can differ from the official federal figures.

Alongside the jobs figure, ADP publishes Pay Insights, which measures annual pay growth for people who stayed in the same job and for people who changed jobs. Pay growth matters for inflation: if wages accelerate sharply, firms often pass some of the cost into prices, which makes the Federal Reserve more cautious about cutting interest rates.

ADP also publishes a preliminary weekly employment estimate, including a four-week moving average of the change in private employment, which gives an even more frequent read on hiring momentum between the monthly reports.

How is it calculated?

ADP Research uses anonymised weekly payroll data covering more than 26 million private-sector employees, alongside more than 15 million individual pay change observations each month for its pay measures, according to ADP’s own release notes. The estimate compares the number of employees on client payrolls in the reference week of the current month with the same measure a month earlier, then adjusts for seasonal patterns such as summer hiring in leisure and hospitality or temporary retail staff before Christmas.

Two features matter for anyone reading the number. First, since a 2022 methodology overhaul the report is a measure of ADP’s own payroll universe rather than an attempt to forecast the government figure, so a gap between the two is normal rather than an error. Second, earlier months are revised as more payroll records arrive: in the July 2026 report, for example, the June figure was revised down to a 95,000 gain, as reported by Trading Economics from ADP data. Always check whether the previous month has been restated before comparing the headline with the prior reading.

The report is not a government statistic and is not subject to statistical agency publication rules. It is a private-sector research product, produced with the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, and it is free to read.

What time is it released and where?

The ADP Employment Report is released at 8:15 am ET, which is 1:15 pm in London, 2:15 pm in Frankfurt and Paris, 9:15 pm in Hong Kong and Singapore, and 10:15 pm in Tokyo. Release day is normally the Wednesday of jobs week, two days before the official US employment report, though in some months ADP publishes a week later, as the schedule above shows.

The figures appear on ADP’s own research site and are distributed through ADP’s news release channel at the moment of publication. There is no lock-up or embargoed press briefing of the kind central banks use, so the number reaches the wire services, terminals and retail platforms simultaneously. ADP Research usually holds a call with journalists shortly after publication, and the chief economist’s commentary can move markets a second time if it changes the interpretation of the headline.

Because 8:15 am ET falls 75 minutes before the New York equity open, the first reaction shows up in US index futures, Treasury bond futures and the dollar rather than in individual share prices. London is mid-afternoon and fully liquid, so UK and European traders see the move in real time.

Historical data

Recent monthly readings for private payroll growth, as published by ADP Research:

Source: ADP National Employment Report releases, ADP Research, with the June revision as reported by Trading Economics from ADP data. ADP’s news release archive holds the full monthly history, including industry and firm-size breakdowns, and is the authoritative record for any month not listed above.

The pattern through the middle of 2026 was one of cooling hiring: the July gain of 44,000 was the smallest in six months, and ADP’s weekly data showed private employers adding an average of 16,500 jobs a week in the four weeks to July 4, 2026, down from 19,250 in the previous four-week period, a fourth consecutive slowdown. Readings in the tens of thousands, rather than the hundreds of thousands seen in the post-pandemic rebound, describe a labour market where firms are neither hiring quickly nor cutting deeply.

What is the consensus forecast?

For the September 2, 2026 release, covering August, a consensus forecast has not yet been published. Economists’ estimates for ADP are typically collected by Reuters, Bloomberg and Dow Jones in the week of the release, and the range is usually wide because the series is volatile from month to month. The most recent published reading is a 44,000 increase for July 2026, against a Reuters-reported forecast of 70,000 at the time, so the previous month came in well below expectations.

When the consensus does appear, treat it as a rough anchor rather than a precise target. Surprises of 50,000 jobs in either direction against forecast are common in this series, which is why a single month rarely changes the interest rate outlook on its own.

How do markets react?

The reaction depends on what investors want from the labour market at the time. When the Federal Reserve is worried about inflation, a strong ADP number is bad news for bonds and shares, because it implies rates stay higher for longer. When the Fed is worried about a slowdown, a weak number can lift shares by strengthening the case for rate cuts, until weakness becomes severe enough to raise recession fears, at which point both shares and bond yields fall together.

• Treasury yields: the two-year yield, which tracks expected Fed policy most closely, usually moves first. Basis points are hundredths of a percentage point, so a 5bp move is 0.05%.
• The dollar: stronger jobs data tends to lift the dollar against the pound, euro and yen, because higher expected US rates attract capital. Weak data tends to do the reverse, which mechanically pushes sterling and the euro higher.
• Equity futures: S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures react within seconds, with rate-sensitive sectors such as housebuilders, banks and technology moving most.
• Rate expectations: pricing in fed funds futures, summarised by the CME FedWatch tool, shifts on large surprises.

Two caveats keep the reaction contained. ADP’s number is not the official statistic, and since the methodology change it has often diverged from the government count, so many institutional investors discount it. And it arrives two days before the official payrolls report, which supersedes it. The practical effect is that ADP moves markets meaningfully only when the surprise is large or when it confirms a story already forming, such as a clear cooling in hiring.

What It Means for Your Money

American jobs data feeds through to household finances in several ways, and not only for people living in the United States.

• Mortgages: US long-term interest rates set the tone for global bond markets. A run of weak ADP readings that convinces investors the Fed will cut rates tends to pull bond yields down, which over time feeds into fixed mortgage rates in the US and, indirectly, into UK and European fixed-rate pricing.
• Savings rates: the same logic runs in reverse for savers. Expectations of lower central bank rates usually mean the best fixed-rate savings deals are withdrawn or repriced lower within weeks.
• Jobs and pay: ADP’s pay growth figure is a direct read on wage bargaining power. Slowing pay growth alongside slowing hiring signals a labour market where employees have less leverage to negotiate.
• Pensions and investments: most diversified pensions hold US equities and US bonds. A jobs picture that is neither too hot nor too cold has historically been the most comfortable backdrop for both.
• The pound, dollar and euro: currency moves after this release change the cost of holiday money, imported goods and the sterling value of overseas investments held by UK savers.
• Prices: wage growth is one input into services inflation. Persistent 4% or higher pay growth makes it harder for inflation to settle at the Fed’s 2% target.

None of this justifies changing a long-term plan on the strength of one monthly figure. The value of tracking the series is in the trend across several months.

Related economic events

• US Jobs Report: the official non-farm payrolls and unemployment rate, published two days after ADP in most months and far more market-moving.
• US CPI Report: the monthly consumer price index, the main inflation reading investors pair with jobs data.
• US PCE Report: the inflation measure the Federal Reserve targets directly.
• US GDP Report: quarterly economic growth, which puts monthly hiring numbers in context.

Frequently Asked Questions

When is the next ADP Employment Report?

The next release is Wednesday, September 2, 2026 at 8:15 am ET (1:15 pm London), covering private-sector hiring in August 2026.

What time is the ADP report released?

Always 8:15 am ET, which is 1:15 pm in London, 2:15 pm in central Europe and 9:15 pm in Hong Kong. There is no embargoed briefing beforehand.

How often is it published?

Monthly, normally on a Wednesday, with each report covering the previous calendar month. ADP also publishes a preliminary weekly employment estimate between monthly reports.

Where can I find the official release?

On ADP Research’s own site and through ADP’s news release archive, where the full monthly history and industry breakdowns are free to read.

How does the ADP report affect interest rates?

It does not set rates, but it shapes expectations. Repeated weak readings strengthen the argument for Federal Reserve rate cuts, while strong hiring and accelerating pay growth support keeping rates higher for longer, and those expectations feed into mortgage and savings rates worldwide.