News articles 26 March 2026

EU trade in goods surplus down to €128 billion in 2025

In 2025, the EU trade in goods balance registered a surplus of €128 billion, representing a decrease of €8 billion compared with 2024 (€136 billion).

Between 2015 and 2025, the EU recorded a trade surplus every year except for 2022, when the negative trade balance was driven by the deficit from the trade in the energy sector. In all other years, trade surpluses in machinery, vehicles, and chemicals and related products outweighed the deficits caused by energy.

The chemicals and related products group registered the largest increase in the last decade, doubling the surplus observed in 2015 from €128.3 billion to €256.7 billion.

The trade balance of the food and drink group also increased from €32.0 billion to €39.7 billion, and of other goods from €9.5 billion to €20.7 billion. By contrast, other manufactured goods changed from a surplus of €11.3 billion in 2015 to a deficit of €37.6 billion in 2025.
The deficit for energy increased from €226.4 billion in 2015 to €298.9 billion in 2025. Fluctuating prices have a large influence on this deficit which was lowest in 2020 at €157.2 billion and highest in 2022 at €649.5 billion.

This information comes from data on international trade in goods published recently by Eurostat. This article presents a handful of findings from the more detailed Statistics Explained article.

Source dataset: ext_st_eu27_2020sitc

Regarding the main trade partners, the United States was the main export destination in 2025, accounting for 21.0% of all EU exports. Exports to the United States were worth €554.9 billion, up 3.6% compared with 2024. The United States was followed by the United Kingdom (€345.5 billion), at 13.1% of the total exports and Switzerland (€219.5 billion) with 8.3%.

On the other hand, China accounted for the biggest value of EU imports, worth €559.4 billion (up 6.4% compared with 2024), with a total share of 22.3% of all imports. China was followed by the United States (€355.5 billion; 14.1% of the total share) and the United Kingdom (€158.6 billion; 6.3%).