Balance of payments, UK: July to September 2025

• The underlying UK current account deficit, excluding precious metals, narrowed to £10.5 billion, or 1.4% of gross domestic product (GDP), in Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2025; this is a change of £5.0 billion compared with the deficit of £15.5 billion (revised from £23.8 billion) in the previous quarter.

• The UK current account deficit, including trade in precious metals, narrowed by £9.1 billion to £12.1 billion, or 1.6% of GDP, in Quarter 3 2025.

• The total trade deficit, excluding precious metals, widened to £4.6 billion, or 0.6% of GDP, in Quarter 3 2025, compared with £3.1 billion (revised from £2.8 billion) in the previous quarter; the goods deficit widened to £57.4 billion, and the services surplus increased to £52.8 billion.

• The primary income account deficit narrowed to £1.9 billion, or 0.2% of GDP, in Quarter 3 2025.

• There was a net financial inflow of £17.2 billion in Quarter 3 2025.

• The preliminary estimate of the UK's net international investment liability position on 30 September 2025 widened to £261.4 billion, from £243.4 billion (revised from £341.8 billion), as of 30 June 2025.

• Data for all quarters back to Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2024 have been open to revisions, with revisions to "current account, excluding precious metals" data ranging from negative 1.0% to positive 1.2% of GDP; revisions largely resulted from corrections to precious metals and mineral fuels and oil in trade in goods data, as previously announced, and updated trade in services and foreign direct investment data.

The UK's current account balance is a measure of the country's balance of payments (BoP) with the rest of the world in trade, primary income, and secondary income.

The underlying UK current account deficit, excluding precious metals, narrowed to £10.5 billion, or 1.4% of gross domestic product (GDP), in Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2025. This is a change of £5.0 billion from the deficit of £15.5 billion, or 2.0% of GDP, in the previous quarter, revised from £23.8 billion.

Table 1 summarises the current account data for Quarter 3 2025. The narrowing of the current account deficit in the latest quarter was largely caused by a £6.6 billion narrowing of the primary income deficit. The £3.0 billion widening of the trade in goods deficit was partially offset by a £1.5 billion expansion of the trade in services surplus.

Trade

The total trade deficit for goods and services widened to £4.6 billion, or 0.6% of GDP, in Quarter 3 2025, from £3.1 billion in the previous quarter (revised from £2.8 billion). The trade in goods deficit widened to £57.4 billion, or 7.5% of GDP, and the trade in services surplus increased to £52.8 billion, or 6.9% of GDP.

Figure 3: Exports of goods fell and imports increased in Quarter 3 2025

Changes in exports and imports of goods, excluding unspecified goods, £ billion, Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2025 compared with Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2025

The trade in goods deficit widened by £3.0 billion in Quarter 3 2025 primarily because of an increase in the value of goods imports. Total goods imports rose by £2.5 billion, from £149.5 billion in Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2025, to £152.1 billion in Quarter 3 2025. The largest increases in imports of goods were recorded in:

• finished manufactured goods, up by £1.6 billion

• semi-manufactured goods, up by £1.0 billion

• food, beverages and tobacco, up by £0.3 billion

These decreases were offset slightly by a fall in the value of other fuels, which decreased by £0.2 billion.

Exports of goods decreased by £0.5 billion, from £95.1 billion in Quarter 2 2025 to £94.7 billion in Quarter 3 2025. The largest decreases were recorded in:

• other fuels, down by £0.4 billion

• semi-manufactured goods, down by £0.2 billion

The trade in services surplus increased by £1.5 billion in Quarter 3 2025, as both exports and imports of services increased, with exports increasing by a greater amount.

Exports of services increased by £2.2 billion in Quarter 3 2025 to £137.9 billion. The largest increases in exports were recorded in:

• transport, up by £0.8 billion

• intellectual property services, up by £0.6 billion

• other business services, up by £0.5 billion

Imports of services increased by £0.7 billion in Quarter 3 2025, to £85.0 billion. The largest increases in imports were recorded in insurance and pension services, financial, and transport, all increasing by £0.2 billion each.

Primary income

The primary income account records income that the UK receives and pays on financial and other assets, along with the compensation of employees.

The primary income account deficit narrowed from £8.4 billion in Quarter 2 2025 (revised from £16.8 billion) to £1.9 billion, or 0.2% of GDP, in Quarter 3 2025, as credits increased and debits decreased.

UK receipts (credits) increased by £5.5 billion from the previous quarter, to £106.7 billion. Earnings on all investment types (direct investment, portfolio, and other) rose, although earnings on debt securities within portfolio investment fell slightly.

UK payments to foreign investors (debits) decreased by £1.1 billion from the previous quarter, to £108.6 billion in Quarter 3 2025. This is because of decreased payments on direct investment and portfolio investment, which fell by £2.5 billion and £0.3 billion, respectively. This was slightly offset by increased payments on other investment of £1.6 billion.

Secondary income

The secondary income account shows current transfers between UK residents and non-residents.

The secondary income deficit widened slightly from £4.0 billion, or 0.5% of GDP, in Quarter 2 2025, to £4.1 billion, or 0.5% of GDP, in Quarter 3 2025.

A current account deficit, which the UK has experienced each year since 1984, places the UK as a net borrower with the rest of the world, indicating that overall expenditure in the UK exceeds national income. The UK must attract net financial inflows to finance its current (and capital) account deficit. This can be achieved through either disposing of overseas assets to overseas investors or accruing liabilities with the rest of the world.

The financial account recorded a net inflow of £17.2 billion in Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2025 after recording a net inflow of £16.3 billion in Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2025.

Net acquisition of UK assets (investment abroad) represented a financial outflow of £229.6 billion in Quarter 3 2025.

Portfolio investment recorded an outflow of £46.0 billion, as UK investors invested in foreign debt securities to the value of £48.3 billion, while dis-investing in foreign equity and investment fund shares to the value of £2.3 billion. Other investment abroad recorded an outflow of £143.2 billion in Quarter 3 2025.

Net incurrence of UK liabilities (investment in the UK) generated an inflow of £246.9 billion in Quarter 3 2025. Other investment recorded an inflow of £159.4 billion in Quarter 3 2025. Portfolio investment recorded a £64.1 billion inflow, as foreign investors invested in UK debt securities and equity and investment fund shares. Direct investment switched from an outflow of £9.0 billion in Quarter 2 2025 to an inflow of £23.4 billion, as direct investors invested more in debt instruments.

Further details are available in our Quarterly economic commentary article.

The international investment position (IIP) represents the UK's balance sheet with the rest of the world. IIP measures the difference between the net stock of assets and liabilities at a point in time, which we report as the last day of each quarter.

The preliminary estimate of the UK's net international investment liability position was £261.4 billion at the end of Quarter 3 (30 September) 2025, compared with £243.4 billion at the end of Quarter 2 (30 June) 2025 (revised from £341.8 billion). This was because the value of UK liabilities increased by more than UK assets.

The UK asset position on 30 September 2025 was valued at £14,555.1 billion. The value of the UK liability position with the rest of the world was valued at £14,816.5 billion.

In line with our National Accounts Revisions Policy, the data accompanying this release are open to revision from 2024 onwards. Revisions to "current account, excluding precious metals" data range from negative 1.0% to positive 1.2% of gross domestic product (GDP).

Revisions largely resulted from:

• corrections to precious metals in trade in goods data, from 2024 Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) onwards, as previously announced

• corrections to mineral fuels and oil in trade in goods data from March 2024 onwards, following a HMRC data error, as previously announced

• updated trade in services, as updated administrative data became available

• updated foreign direct investment (FDI) data for 2024, following the annual benchmarking to the FDI survey, along with updated quarterly survey data for Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) and Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2025

Data sources

Balance of payments statistics are compiled from a variety of sources, and produced using the national accounts sector and financial accounts (SFA) framework. Some of the main sources used include:

• overseas trade statistics (HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC))

• International Trade in Services Survey (ITIS) from the Office for National Statistics (ONS)

• International Passenger Survey (ONS); this was suspended between March 2020 and January 2021 because of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, and is currently undergoing transformation

• Foreign Direct Investment Survey (ONS and Bank of England (BoE))

• various financial inquiries (ONS and BoE)

• Ownership of UK Quoted Shares Survey (ONS)

Trade is measured through both exports and imports of goods and services. Data are supplied by over 30 sources, including several administrative sources, with HMRC being the largest for trade in goods. The ITIS, conducted by the ONS, is the largest single data source for trade in services.

The main source of information for UK foreign direct investment (FDI) statistics is our FDI Survey. Separate surveys are used to collect data on inward and outward FDI. This is combined with data from the BoE on the banking sector.

The statistics in this bulletin are compiled using the asset and liability measurement principle, which uses residency as the main distinction between outward and inward investments.

Changes affecting UK trade statistics

HMRC error affecting mineral fuels and oils

In this publication and our GDP quarterly national accounts, UK: July to September 2025 bulletin, we have corrected HMRC Overseas Trade (OTS) data, following the identification of an error. This correction is for exports of mineral fuels and oils and affects data back to March 2024. This release revises data back to Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2024. Please see our UK trade: October 2025 bulletin for further information, including indicative impacts. In line with our National Accounts Revisions policy, we will use the corrected HMRC data in our UK trade: November 2025 release, scheduled for 15 January 2026.

Precious metals methods improvement

As previously communicated, when implementing improvements to recording trade in precious metals as part of our Methods improvements for Blue Book and Pink Book 2025, we removed the double counting of some precious metals bars and included previously under-recorded, non-monetary gold that is not in bar form. 

These improvements, however, were not fully applied to a small number of countries in 2024 and 2025 because of a processing error. For full details including indicative impacts previously published, please see our Balance of payments, UK: April to June 2025 bulletin and UK trade: October 2025 bulletin.  

We have now corrected the processing error and, in this release, we fully implement this improvement. Estimates of trade in goods for Quarter 1 2024 to Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2025 were updated in our UK trade: August 2025 bulletin and GDP first quarterly estimate, UK: July to September 2025 bulletin. These corrected estimates were completed exceptionally outside of the usual National Accounts Revisions Policy to provide consistency between GDP and UK trade data. As a result of the corrections included in this publication, estimates are now consistent between UK trade, GDP, and balance of payments publications. 

Data collection changes

Since the UK left the EU on 31 January 2020, the arrangements for how the UK trades with the EU changed. HMRC implemented some data collection changes following Brexit, which affected statistics on UK trade in goods with the EU. We have made adjustments to our estimates of goods imports from the EU in 2021 and 2022 to account for these changes, however, a structural break remains in the full time series for goods imports from and exports to the EU from January 2021. 

We therefore advise caution when interpreting and drawing conclusions from these statistics. Our Impact of trade in goods data collection changes on UK trade statistics: summary of adjustments and the structural break from 2021 article provides more detail. 

International trade in services estimates

From September 2025 until early 2027, International trade in services survey (ITIS) data, which account for approximately 50% of total trade in services, are being processed once per quarter. During this period, the data are based on a survey response rate of approximately 60% to 70%. This enables more focus on improving processing systems and ensuring methods and quality in the future.

The ITIS data that currently inform trade in services estimates are based on benchmarked annual 2023 survey data and quarterly ITIS survey data for periods from Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2024 onwards. We will incorporate benchmarked annual 2024 data in the future, in line with the National Accounts Revisions Policy.

The International Passenger Survey (IPS), which is the source of travel services estimates, accounting for approximately 8% of total trade, is being transformed under our travel and tourism project. The travel services estimates have been forecast since Quarter 3 2024, and will be forecast during travel and tourism transformation.

Financial sector statistics

Our Financial Services Survey (FSS) transformation will improve the quality of our financial sector statistics. During the period of transformation, starting from Quarter 1 2024, financial services statistics in this release are based on forecasts.

Quality and methodology

More quality and methodology information on strengths, limitations, appropriate uses, and how the data were created is available in our Balance of payments quality and methodology information (QMI).

We will continue to produce our UK balance of payments statistics in line with the UK Statistics Authority's Code of Practice for Statistics, and in accordance with internationally agreed statistical guidance and standards. This is based on the International Monetary Fund's Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual: Sixth Edition (BPM6) (PDF, 3.0MB), until those standards are updated.

Accredited official statistics

These accredited official statistics were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation in December 2011. They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics and should be labelled "accredited official statistics".