TOP 10 Countries with Largest Trade Deficits (2025)

by admin November 18, 2025 3038 18 min read

Latest full-year data available (mainly 2024 trade balances in goods), shown as a 2025 snapshot.

How this ranking is constructed. Values reflect the overall trade balance in goods (exports minus imports) in current US dollars. The figures are compiled from International Trade Centre (ITC) / UN Comtrade statistics and cross-checked against IMF and World Bank publications. Countries are ranked by the size of their trade deficit in billions of US dollars, not by the deficit relative to GDP.

In 2024, global trade imbalances remained large. A small group of economies runs extremely high deficits in absolute terms, while another group generates large surpluses. The ten economies below account for a substantial share of all recorded trade deficits worldwide, with the United States alone absorbing more than a third of the global “red ink”.

Large trade deficits are not automatically “bad” and can coexist with healthy growth, especially in countries that attract investment and remain central to global value chains. However, persistent external deficits increase exposure to currency volatility, financing costs and shifts in investor sentiment. Interpreting the numbers therefore requires looking both at their absolute size and at the deficit relative to national income.

United States remains by far the largest deficit country in absolute terms, with a goods trade gap above US$1.2 trillion.
United Kingdom and India form a second tier of large deficit economies, each above US$250 billion.
France, Türkiye, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Egypt, Spain and Romania round out the top 10, illustrating how both advanced and emerging economies can run sizeable deficits.

Table 1. Trade balance in goods, top 10 deficit countries (latest data, US$ billions)

Rank	Country	Trade deficit (US$ billions, goods)
1	United States	-1,294.8
2	United Kingdom	-302.7
3	India	-261.1
4	France	-113.9
5	Türkiye	-82.2
6	Philippines	-61.9
7	Hong Kong SAR	-58.3
8	Egypt	-49.9
9	Spain	-47.6
10	Romania	-36.1

Figures rounded to one decimal place. Values reflect merchandise trade (goods only). In several cases, especially Hong Kong and Spain, surpluses in services trade and investment income partially offset these goods deficits when looking at the broader current account.

How Large Are These Deficits Relative to GDP?

Absolute dollar amounts are only part of the story. A US$50 billion trade deficit is modest for a large economy but can be very serious for a small or lower-middle income country. To assess macroeconomic vulnerability, analysts look at the external balance as a share of GDP, typically using the current account balance (which includes trade in goods and services plus income flows).

The table below summarises the latest available estimates of the current account balance as a percentage of GDP for the same ten economies. Negative values indicate a deficit; positive values indicate a surplus. Note that for Hong Kong SAR and Spain the current account is actually in surplus even though their merchandise trade in goods shows a deficit.

Table 2. Current account balance for top deficit countries (% of GDP, latest year)

Country	Current account (% of GDP)	Interpretation
United States	-3.0	Large deficit in dollars, moderate as a share of a very large GDP.
United Kingdom	-3.3	Persistent external deficit, partly financed by strong financial inflows.
India	-0.9	Moderate current account gap, helped by services exports and remittances.
France	-0.8	Small to medium deficit; energy prices and manufacturing imports remain key drivers.
Türkiye	-4.1	High external deficit relative to GDP, adding pressure on the currency and inflation.
Philippines	-2.6	Deficit driven by capital goods and energy imports; partly offset by remittance inflows.
Hong Kong SAR	+9.3	Large surplus once services trade and investment income are included.
Egypt	-2.2	Sizeable deficit for a lower-middle income economy; vulnerable to capital flow reversals.
Spain	+2.6	Current account surplus thanks to strong tourism and service exports.
Romania	-7.0	Very high deficit relative to GDP, pointing to structural external imbalances.

Values are rounded and based mainly on 2023 current-account statistics. They provide an approximate indication of external imbalances relative to the size of each economy. Economies like the United States and India have very large deficits in dollar terms but smaller gaps when scaled by GDP, whereas countries such as Türkiye or Romania have more acute deficits relative to national income.

Reading the indicators together. A country in the top 10 by absolute deficit but with a small deficit-to-GDP ratio is less vulnerable than a smaller economy where a modest dollar deficit translates into a large share of GDP. The structure of financing (foreign direct investment vs short-term debt) and the currency composition of liabilities are equally crucial.

Chart 1. Trade deficits in goods, top 10 countries (US$ billions)

The bar chart highlights the extreme scale of the US deficit compared with other economies. The United Kingdom and India form a second tier, while the remaining countries cluster in the US$35–120 billion range.

Trade Deficits from 2010 to 2025: Structural Patterns

Looking only at one year can hide how trade positions evolve over time. The period from 2010 to 2025 spans the post-global-financial-crisis recovery, the commodity price cycle of the mid-2010s, the COVID-19 shock, and the subsequent energy and supply-chain disruptions. For many countries in the top-10 list, deficits widened during periods of strong domestic demand or high energy prices and narrowed when currencies weakened or imports slowed.

The stylised chart below uses smoothed series based on IMF and World Bank current-account data to illustrate the broad direction of external balances for four economies: the United States, the United Kingdom, India and Türkiye. The numbers are indicative rather than exact but capture the main pattern: chronic deficits in the US and UK, alternating episodes of wider and narrower gaps in India, and structurally high deficits in Türkiye.

Chart 2. Current account balance, selected countries (% of GDP, stylised paths)

Over time, the United States and the United Kingdom remain firmly in deficit territory, typically between -2 % and -4 % of GDP. Türkiye shows episodes where the deficit exceeds -5 % of GDP, which tends to coincide with periods of currency pressure and higher external financing needs. India’s external position has improved compared with the early 2010s but still moves in cycles, reflecting swings in oil prices and domestic investment demand.

How policymakers respond. Countries with large and persistent trade or current-account deficits typically combine several strategies:

Tightening monetary and fiscal policy to cool domestic demand and reduce imports.
Allowing the currency to adjust, making exports more competitive and imports more expensive.
Promoting export diversification and upgrading into higher-value segments of global value chains.
Attracting more stable forms of financing, such as long-term foreign direct investment, rather than relying on short-term debt flows.

Primary data sources and references

The ranking and commentary above are based on publicly available datasets from international institutions and statistical agencies. Key references (English-language interfaces) include: