Official Statistics

Technical annex to trade and investment core statistics book

Updated 23 May 2025

Technical annex

These statistics are designated as Official Statistics under the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007. From August 2018, these statistics have been produced to fully comply with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics. The United Kingdom Statistics Authority has not assessed these statistics for compliance against the code and as such these statistics are not Accredited Official Statistics.

Data sources used within the Trade and Investment Core Statistics Book (herein ‘Core Statistics Book’) are listed throughout, with links to their original publication.

For terms and definitions, see the glossary at the end of this book.

Users and uses of this publication

The Core Statistics Book has been developed by the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) to contain the latest statistics on trade, investment and the economy. It brings together and summarises the wide range of statistics produced by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), DBT, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and others into a single product. It provides a useful reference product for both experts and new users of trade statistics and is a useful resource for the public, business and the media.

No new data is first released in the Core Statistics Book. All the statistics included are derived from publicly available data published by ONS, HMRC, DBT, UNCTAD and other organisations. Some basic calculations (for example, percentage changes) have been carried out by DBT.

This is regularly published as an official statistic in accordance with the Code of Practice for official statistics. The compendium contains a wide range of trade statistics in a user-friendly publication with the aim of helping users to quickly find the most relevant and up to date trade and investment statistics. It provides the latest available statistics from a number of UK and international sources on a consistent basis and where inconsistencies exist explains the differences between the sources.

The Core Statistics Book helps to improve the accessibility of trade and investment statistics by helping both the professional and newcomers to trade and investment statistics navigate the various sources to identity the most relevant statistics and to present them in a consistent manner.

Disclaimer

Figures used throughout the Core Statistics Book are based on previously published Official and Accredited Official Statistics. As such, all figures are accurate based on the data made available, and all liability for the accuracy of these statistics is with the data owners. The Core Statistics Book will update and revise figures as and when data owners release new or revised data. DBT takes no responsibility for the data sources used.

Revisions policy

On occasions, previously published data will need to be revised due to changes to source data or correcting of errors. Major revisions will be made as soon as possible while smaller revisions will be made at the time of the next scheduled release (see the statistics release calendar). Additionally, some data will be provisional and subject to future revisions. Where a large revision has taken place reasons will be provided.

Feedback

Provide comments and feedback on the Core Statistics Book to statistics@businessandtrade.gov.uk

Background to the release

The DBT Core Statistics Book was first published on 21 August 2018.

Performance, cost and respondent burden

The data used is all derived from other primary data sources; no extra resource is required to collect the data. The Core Statistics Book is compiled and checked by a small statistics team in the analytical directorate of DBT.

The performance and summary sheets are used by the executive board and can be used to measure success and performance of the department against its main aims.

Confidentiality, transparency and security

Confidentiality, transparency and security – for example, all data released is published in aggregate tables, no record level data is released. Record level data relating to the aggregate tables is compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation and held in line with a number of data sharing agreements between the department and the data suppliers.

Reporting methodology

All figures are correct as of the date of release and as reported by their data producer. The publication will be updated each month on the fifth working day following the Office for National Statistics (ONS) UK trade release. Forthcoming dates for publication will be made available on the statistics release calendar.

Unless otherwise stated, all data is nominal (current prices), not adjusted for inflation. Real estimates (constant prices) take account of inflation.

All data are in the public domain.

All figures are independently rounded, and therefore some percentages may not add up to the totals due to rounding.

Missing values are excluded from all calculations of percentages. Underlying percentage figures are rounded to one decimal place or to the nearest whole integer (for example, all trailing decimals are removed).

Some tables may include ‘unknown’ or ‘unallocated’ figures; in which case these will be stated in a footnote.

In some cases, such as the number and percent of registered GB businesses exporting, goods and services may not add up to the total for goods and services combined. This is because some businesses will trade in both goods and services. In the same way the number of exporters and importers may not add up to the total number involved in international trade because some businesses will both export and import.

In some instances, figures in the main commentary may differ to those in the trade and investment statistics summary sheet. This is because more up-to-date figures on goods and services by partner country, consistent with the aggregate figures in the statistics summary sheet, are not available. This means that some tables and charts within the commentary, such as country ranking tables, use older data to provide these breakdowns.

All data are seasonally adjusted unless otherwise specified.

Data sources and update schedule

The Core Statistics Book will be updated on a monthly basis and will include the latest versions of each of the data sources listed.

ONS UK trade – monthly

Link to latest release: ONS UK trade

Next release date: 12 June 2025

ONS balance of payments – quarterly

Link to latest release: ONS UK balance of payments

Next release date: 30 June 2025

ONS total trade all countries – quarterly

Link to latest release: ONS UK total trade all countries

Next release date: tbc July 2025

ONS Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) – annual

Link to latest release: ONS foreign direct investment involving UK companies

Next release date: tbc 2025

Link to latest user requested data: ONS foreign direct investment totals 2022 to 2023

Next release date: tbc 2025

Notes on the ONS FDI data:

• data are on a directional basis

• data are on a net basis, that is, investments minus disinvestments

• rankings are affected by the fact that FDI statistics are currently compiled on the basis of immediate, rather than ultimate, partner country. This often leads to an overstatement of investments in or from big financial centres (such as Luxembourg and the Netherlands) or countries offering favourable tax terms to investors

ONS International trade in UK nations, regions and cities – annual

Link to latest release:

ONS International trade in UK nations, regions and cities

Next release date: tbc

ONS trade in services by modes of supply – annual

Link to latest release:

ONS trade in services by modes of supply

Next release date: tbc 2025

Methods: ONS modes of supply methods

ONS Annual Business Survey exporters and importers – annual

Link to latest release:

ONS Annual Business Survey exporters and importers

Next release date: tbc 2025

Notes on the data:

• the data for 2022 are based on a response rate of 73% of businesses in the sample, compared to 78% for 2018

• responses for the 2019, 2020, and 2021 surveys were collected during the Coronavirus pandemic. This impacted the number of responses received – rates of approximately 53%, 56%, and 68% for 2019, 2020, and 2021 respectively. These lower response rates increase the level of uncertainty around these estimates, as certain groups in the sample do not have the degree of representation required. Therefore, strong caution is advised when comparing figures over these time periods

• estimates do not cover all businesses. They only cover registered businesses (for Value Added Tax (VAT) and/or Pay As You Earn (PAYE)) in the GB non-financial business economy which accounts for around two-thirds of the economy in terms of gross value added. The data exclude much of finance, agriculture and government

• other sources also estimate the number or proportion of businesses which export (for example, HMRC Regional Trade Statistics) but they differ in their methodology and coverage so are not directly comparable with the ABS

ONS GDP quarterly national accounts – quarterly

Link to latest release: ONS UK GDP quarterly national accounts

Next release date: 30 June 2025

ONS GDP first quarterly estimate – quarterly

Links to latest release:

ONS UK GDP first quarterly estimate

Next release date: 14 August 2025

HMRC regional trade statistics (RTS) – quarterly

Link to latest release: HMRC regional trade statistics

Next release date: 11 June 2025

Notes on the data:

• values differ from those reported by the ONS due to differences in methodology
• ‘unallocated’ refers to trade that cannot be allocated to UK regions
• data on number of exporters and importers are compiled on a ‘proportion’ basis; that is, a business is counted as a fraction in each region they trade based on the proportion of their employees in each region. The sum of businesses (whole and fractions) gives the total business count for a region

DBT National Survey of Registered Businesses (NSRB) – annual

Link to latest release: DBT NSRB

Next release date: tbc 2025

DBT Inward Investment results – annual

Link to latest release: DBT inward investment results

Next release date: tbc 2025

OBR Economic and fiscal outlook – bi-annual

Link to latest release: OBR economic and fiscal outlook

Next release date: October 2025

IMF World Economic Outlook – bi-annual

Link to latest release: IMF world economic outlook

Next release date: October 2025

OECD Trade in Value Added (TiVA) – ad-hoc

Link to latest release: OECD trade in value added

Next release date: tbc

OECD economic outlook – bi-annual

Link to latest release: OECD economic outlook

Next release date: tbc 2025

UNCTAD World investment report – annual

Link to latest release: UNCTAD world investment report

Next release date: tbc 2025

UNCTAD goods and services (BPM6) – annual

Link to latest release: UNCTAD goods and services BPM6

Next release date: tbc 2025

Methodology

For full details of the methodology used for each data source, refer to the original statistics publication and relevant quality and methodology information (QMI).

Links to all QMIs relevant to the data used in the Core Statistics Book are provided here:

• ONS UK trade QMI

• ONS international trade in services QMI

• HMRC overseas trade statistics methodologies

• ONS foreign direct investment QMI

• ONS modes of supply methods

• ONS international trade in UK nations, regions and cities QMI

• ONS Annual Business Survey QMI

Further information on the data sources

 Trade in goods

Trade in goods statistics compiled by ONS are derived from HMRC data.

HMRC and ONS data are on a different basis. HMRC data are based on a ‘Cross-border’ or ‘Physical movement’ principle: Goods entering and leaving an economic territory are recorded as imports and exports, respectively.

ONS data are based on a ‘Change of Ownership’ (BoP) principle: Goods entering and leaving an economic territory are not recorded as imports or exports unless they change hands (between UK residents and non-residents).

The UK’s exit from the EU overlapped with the pandemic and brought about other changes to HMRC’s systems and data collection methodologies. Until 2021, international trade in goods data detailing trade between the UK and other Member States of the EU was collected from VAT-registered businesses via the VAT return. For those with a larger turnover more detail was collected from HM Revenue & Customs’ Intrastat survey, which collects monthly data from businesses whose EU trade exceeds a certain amount (the ‘Intrastat Exemption Threshold’).

Since 1 January 2021, exports from Great Britain to the EU were captured using customs declarations instead of Intrastat and VAT returns.

Until 2021, international trade in goods data detailing trade between the UK and non-EU countries were collected from UK Customs import and export entries made by importing and exporting businesses predominantly via the Customs Handling of Import and Export Freight (CHIEF) system. These are referred to as ‘customs declarations’.​

Since 1 January 2022, Intrastat only applies to movements of goods between Northern Ireland and the EU. Imports into Great Britain (GB) (England, Scotland and Wales) from the EU are no longer covered by Intrastat. Customs declarations are used for imports of goods into GB from the EU and for imports into the UK from non-EU countries. This information is used in combination with Intrastat data on imports into Northern Ireland from the EU, to create the overall UK’s imports dataset.

The ONS have published a number of articles setting out the impact of changes to data collection since the UK left the EU.

For both trade and goods and trade in services trade from overseas territories are included with that countries figures. For example, United States’ statistics include Puerto Rico and France’s statistics include Monaco and the French overseas departments (Reunion, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Mayotte and French Guiana) and the French northern part of St Martin. For more information, refer to the methodological notes accompanying the original data publication.

 Trade in services

International Trade in Services (ITIS)

Quarterly and annual International Trade in Services (ITIS), is the largest data source for trade in services estimates. This is the data source for the following industries:

• personal, cultural and recreational
• telecommunication, computer and information
• construction
• intellectual property
• other business
• manufacturing on physical inputs owned by others
• maintenance and repair
• financial
• insurance

Travel data comes from the International Passenger Survey (IPS) – the IPS questions around 250,000 passengers (non-resident visitors leaving the UK and UK residents returning from abroad) per year on reason for travel and expenditure (personal/business, health and education expenditure) and country of origin. The information collected is weighted up to known passenger traffic which is provided by Civil Aviation Authority, Department for Transport, Eurostar, Eurotunnel, Heathrow Airport Holdings and a number of airports.

Following concerns of under-representation of visitors from China, as well as other countries in south-east Asia, the ONS have developed an adjustment method as part of a programme of work to improve the quality of the travel and tourism statistics.

Bank of England

The Bank of England provides ONS with information on banks: commissions and fees; spread earnings; commissions on securities and derivatives; banking charges.

Other sources

Other sources include:

• Chamber of Shipping (sea transport services, leasing)
• Civil Aviation Authority (air transport services)
• Baltic Exchange (financial services)
• Financial Services Authority (insurance services)
• Lloyds of London (insurance services)
• Royal Mail (postal and courier services)

Data quality issues

This covers specific issues related to trade and investment statistics. It covers relevance (content, completeness, geographical coverage and user needs), uncertainty and bias, timeliness and punctuality, accessibility and clarity, and coherence and comparability.

Trade

Unlike trade in goods statistics, which are essentially administrative data, much of the information on trade in services is obtained from sample surveys which are subject to sampling and non-sampling errors. This, together with the fact that trade in services are harder to measure (due to their intangible nature), means that the quality of the trade in services data is weaker than that for goods. Services data are also much less timely and detailed (in terms of services categories and partner country breakdowns) than goods data.

 Trade asymmetries

There are asymmetries in bilateral trade statistics reported by countries (for example, the value of UK exports to France reported by the UK does not match the value of French imports from the UK reported by France).

These asymmetries reflect a number of factors, including:

• differences in coverage and methodology – differences in survey methods and data sources; exclusions of particular types of goods or services; differences in disclosure control rules; differences in the recording of goods sent abroad for processing and repair

• valuation differences – differences in methods of estimating value of exports (usually on a free on board (FOB) prices) and imports (usually on a cost insurance freight (CIF) basis); differences in declaration thresholds; and exchange rate conversions

Other factors that impact on data quality are:

• differences in the classification of goods and services in BoP statistics compiled in different countries
• under-reporting or misallocation of trade to a partner country
• differences in the timing of recording transactions
• various other factors, including processing errors, fraudulent declarations etc

For more information, see the ONS article on asymmetries in trade data and HMRC articles on asymmetries

 Foreign direct investment

FDI statistics can be presented in 2 different ways: the directional principle and the asset/liability principle. The 2 compilation methods cover the same flows and positions but differ in how they classify and combine these flows and positions.

Under the asset/liability principle, the data are organised according to whether the investment relates to an asset or a liability, whereas under the directional principle, the data are compiled according to the direction of the investment for the reporting economy, either outward or inward. The different presentation of the data can result in different estimates for outward and inward FDI – more detail on the differences between the 2 principles have been published by the ONS.

The ONS FDI statistics presented in this brief use the directional principle. They are sourced from the ONS’s FDI Involving UK companies release, the most detailed and reliable source for UK FDI statistics.

FDI statistics suffer from a number of limitations.

ONS statistics on FDI are dominated by mergers and acquisitions and therefore can be very volatile and cyclical. FDI data are prone to revisions due to the inclusion of updated information from surveys and revaluations in the value of acquired assets

The geographical and sectoral distribution of FDI can be distorted by trans-shipping or ‘pass-through investment’. FDI statistics internationally (including those compiled by the ONS) are currently compiled on the basis of the immediate investing country, rather than the ultimate investing country. This often leads to an overstatement of investments in or from financial centres, or countries offering favourable tax terms to investors (for example, Offshore islands) and therefore may mask the true picture of FDI activity. Estimates of FDI by ultimate controlling economy were published by the ONS in July 2023

As with trade, there are asymmetries in FDI statistics reported by different countries. Asymmetries are discrepancies between the outward and inward data of 2 countries (for example, the value of UK FDI in France reported by the UK does not match the value of UK FDI into France reported by France). Asymmetries reflect a number of factors including differences in coverage and methodology, such as differences in geographic and sectoral definitions applied by national compilers and differences in survey methods and data sources

Glossary

• exports – sales of goods and services by residents of the reporting country to non-residents. See also ‘Physical movement (or customs) basis’ and ‘Change of ownership (or BoP) basis’

• imports – purchases of goods and services by residents of the reporting country from non-residents. See also ‘Physical movement (or customs) basis and ‘Change of ownership (or BoP) basis’

• trade balance – the difference between exports and imports

• trade surplus – occurs when the value of a country’s exports exceeds that of its imports

• trade deficit – occurs when the value of a country’s imports exceeds that of its exports

• bilateral or ‘total’ trade – the value of total trade between 2 countries (exports plus imports combined)

• physical movement (or customs) basis – a good is recorded as an export (import) if it physically leaves (enters) the economic territory of a country. The HMRC trade in goods data in this document are reported on this basis

• change of ownership (or BoP) basis – a good leaving (entering) the economic territory of a country is recorded as an export (import) only if it has changed ownership between the resident of the reporting country and non-residents. The ONS goods data in this document are reported on this basis – hence they are not directly comparable with the HMRC data which are based on the ‘physical movement’ principle. Trade in services involves no physical movement (services are intangible) so services data are always reported on a ‘change of ownership’ (BoP) basis

• current prices – prices at which goods and services are currently being sold in the market, as they were at the time of measurement and not adjusted for inflation

• constant prices – adjusted prices so that changes over time exclude the effect of price inflation

• inflation – the rate at which prices for goods and services increase or decrease over a period of time

• Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – the total value of all goods and services produced within a country

• Balance of Payments (BoP) – a set of accounts summarising all the transactions of an economy with the rest of the world

• current account – part of the BoP. It measures the difference between what a country earns and spends with the rest of the world. It comprises: a) the trade account (for example, UK exports and imports of goods and services), b) the primary income account (for example, income earned by UK residents as a result of their investment abroad net of income earned by foreign residents from their investments in the UK), and c) secondary income (for example, net transfers of money between the UK and other countries (for example, foreign aid and official payments to and receipts from EU institutions and other international bodies)

• foreign direct investment (FDI) – investment made by an entity resident in one economy (‘direct investor’) to acquire a ‘lasting interest’ in an enterprise operating in another economy. The ‘lasting interest’ is deemed to exist if the direct investor acquires at least 10% of equity, or equivalently 10% of the voting rights, of the company

• FDI stock – the accumulated value of all previous investments at the end of a reference period. For example, UK outward FDI stock refers to the total value of UK residents’ FDI abroad and UK inward FDI stock refers to the total value of FDI by non-UK resident investors in the UK

• Special Purpose Entities – refers to entities such as financing subsidiaries, shell companies and conduits, which typically do not conduct any notable operations in the country in which they are resident other than to pass through investments from their parent company to an affiliate in another country

• greenfield capital investment – the creation of a firm from scratch by one or more non-resident investors; an expansion of the capital stock, directly generating new economic activity and jobs

• Trade in Value Added (TiVA) – a new statistical approach for measuring trade. Unlike traditional (‘gross’) trade statistics, TiVA decomposes gross exports into domestic and foreign value added. Taking the UK as an example, the domestic value added in gross exports measures the value added that is generated domestically (in the UK) by the UK exporting industry, UK upstream suppliers and re-imports. The foreign value added measures the contribution that foreign suppliers make to the total value of UK exports. A high share of foreign (imported) value added suggests that a country is highly integrated into global supply chains, that is, it relies on imported inputs for the production of its exports

• backward linkages in exports – measure how dependent domestic exporters are on foreign inputs (raw materials, machinery) for the production of their exports

• trade asymmetries – discrepancies in bilateral trade statistics reported by countries. For example, the value of UK exports to the United States (reported by the UK) does not match the value of US imports from the UK (reported by the United States)

• FDI asymmetries – discrepancies in bilateral FDI statistics reported by countries. For example, the value of UK outward FDI stock in the United States (reported by the UK) does not match the value of inward FDI stock from the UK (reported by the United States)

• sampling error – sampling allows estimation for the whole population without having to survey the whole population. A sampling error is the difference between the sampled and whole population

• non-sampling error – a catch-all term for the deviations from the true value that are not a function of the sample chosen, including coverage errors (error in accurately representing the whole population from the sample), response errors (inaccurate answers from respondents), recording errors (where data are coded incorrectly during collection)

• Cost, Insurance and Freight (CIF) – imports are typically valued by customs authorities on a CIF basis (including freight and insurance costs of transporting the goods to a country) while exports are valued on a FOB basis (exclude freight and insurance costs). This can cause an asymmetry in bilateral trade in goods statistics as the value of imports is higher than the value of mirror exports. The value required for BoP purposes is the value of goods at the point of export (that is, the customs border of the exporting country) rather than the value of goods as they arrive in the country. Therefore, the ONS makes adjustments (deducts freight and insurance costs from the values recorded by HMRC) to convert trade in goods statistics to the basis required for BoP.

• Free On Board (FOB) – see ‘Cost, Insurance and Freight (CIF)’

• Extended Balance of Payments Services (EBOPS) – the classification system for trade in services used in BoP statistics

• seasonal adjustment – the purpose of seasonal adjustment is to remove systematic calendar-related variation associated with the time of the year, that is, seasonal effects. This facilitates comparisons between consecutive time periods. Further detail can be found on the ONS website