UK Global Interconnections

Trade includes both goods, which are physical products such as cars and medicines, and services, which are activities such as banking, legal advice and transport. A service does not have to travel in a container: advice can be delivered remotely to an overseas customer.

The direction of the transaction matters. A UK business selling a car overseas makes a UK export. A UK customer buying a car from overseas makes a UK import. Cars can therefore be important on both sides of UK trade.

The UK's major trading partners

A trading partner is a country with which the UK exchanges goods or services. To compare partners overall, total trade adds together exports and imports of both goods and services.

In the 12 months ending March 2026, the UK's ten largest trading partners were:

The United States was the largest individual partner, accounting for 17.4% of total UK trade. Germany was second, with 8.1%. The pattern shows connections at different geographical scales: many major partners are nearby European countries, but the United States and China demonstrate the UK's wider global connections.

The European Union collectively is also important. In the same period, the UK exported £385.3 billion to EU countries and imported £480.6 billion from them. However, a ranking of individual countries is different from a comparison with the EU as a whole: the EU contains several of the partners in the table.

Principal goods exported and imported

The UK's goods trade includes manufactured products, machinery and fuels. The following figures cover the 12 months ending July 2026:

Mechanical power generators are machinery that produces power; medicinal and pharmaceutical products include medicines. Crude oil is unprocessed oil, whereas refined oil has been processed into usable products such as fuels.

Other major exports include non-ferrous metals, scientific instruments, beverages and tobacco, electrical goods and refined oil. Other major imports include crude oil, electrical goods, office machinery and clothing.

These are selected named product categories, not a complete list of trade. The goods-import statistics also contain a large category called ‘unspecified goods’. Notice that machinery, medicines, cars and oil appear in both directions: the UK does not simply export one set of products and import an entirely different set.

Services are central to UK trade

Services made up the larger part of UK exports in the 12 months ending July 2026: service exports were worth £561.4 billion, compared with £392.2 billion for goods. Imports showed the opposite pattern: goods imports were worth £654.1 billion, compared with £351.6 billion for services.

The principal service exports, in the four quarters ending June 2026, were:

• Other business services — £187.4 billion: including legal advice, accounting, management consultancy, engineering and research and development.
• Financial services — £110.1 billion: including banking and other financial activities.
• Travel services — £70.1 billion.
• Telecoms, computer and information services — £54.5 billion.
• Intellectual property services — £43.3 billion: involving payment for the use of intellectual property, such as licensed creations or inventions.

The principal service imports over that same period were other business services (£126.0 billion), travel (£85.5 billion), transport (£34.9 billion), intellectual property services (£24.4 billion) and financial services (£22.2 billion).

Travel illustrates why a service can be traded without a physical product crossing a border. An overseas visitor paying for accommodation in the UK contributes to a UK travel-service export. A UK resident paying for accommodation abroad contributes to a UK travel-service import. Together, goods and services show how the UK is connected to other countries through products, expertise and spending.