Corporate report

UK Export Finance Performance Highlights 2024 to 2025

Published 17 July 2025

This year has been record-breaking for UKEF – we issued more support in a single year than ever before – but the impact we deliver is not just about numbers. Guided by our Business Plan, our support is vital to enable exporting businesses to access the finance they need to grow. The value we add is being felt by customers of all sizes across the length and breadth of the United Kingdom, helping them to scale their business, expand into new markets, and support local jobs

We’re driving economic growth

• £14.5 billion of new business issued
• 667 businesses directly supported
• Impact on economic activity of up to £5.4 billion
• 41,000 jobs supported

We’re maximising our impact, guided by our 2024-29 business plan

1. Export Growth

Catalyse UK trade through UKEF’s world-leading export finance and insurance offer

• Achieving more than 40% of our 5-year UK content objective in year 1 of our Business Plan, supporting UK firms to win £5.2 billion of export contracts

• Helping businesses to build their export capability by supporting £2 billion of non-contract specific support

2. SME Growth

Significantly increase the number of small and medium-sized enterprises that benefit from UKEF’s support

• Providing support to 496 SME customers and enhancing our SME offer by launching an online portal to streamline export credit insurance applications, making it easier and faster for SMEs to access support

3. Inclusive Trade

Support a broad range of businesses to export, driving local and inclusive growth across all regions of the UK

• 83% of the SMEs we supported are based outside of London, meeting our objective to keep this proportion above 80%

• Measured the number of female-led businesses we support for the first time: of the SMEs we supported, 18% were female-led, and we are committed to increasing this proportion year-on-year

4. Clean growth and transition

Position UK exporters and suppliers at the heart of the global low-carbon transition

• Providing £2.3 billion of clean growth financing, supporting priority sectors like offshore wind and gigafactories

5. Developing markets

Use our finance in developing markets to create positive impact on communities overseas and in the UK

• Mobilising £1.2 billion of finance in low- and middle-income countries, including £85 million of support for land and agricultural improvement works in Cameroon

Delivering on government priorities

We’re growing our core offering to meet increased demand while also evolving our products in line with our customers’ needs.

• Launched a new Critical Minerals Supply Finance product to help UK exporters secure supplies of critical resources

• Supported our largest ever defence deal in Poland, supporting the UK’s national interests, and secured a £2 billion increase to our direct lending capacity to support more defence transactions in the future

• Parliament agreed a £15 billion increase to our Statutory Limit, creating more potential financial firepower to support UK exports

• Launched the Early Project Services Guarantee product aimed at making UK services firms more attractive to overseas project sponsors

• Secured agreement through the Net Zero Export Credit Agencies Alliance for the first-ever set of decarbonisation target-setting protocols for export credit agencies and export–import banks

All while operating at no net cost to the taxpayer

We are a self-funding, income generating department that operates at no net cost to the taxpayer over time. We are fiscally responsible when taking risks, to provide financial support where the private sector cannot.

• £428 million premium income earned to protect the taxpayer against the risk of loss

• £146 million returned in profit to the exchequer, showing that we’re supporting growth in a fiscally responsible way

• £278 million of claims paid, showing the value of our guarantee in times of macroeconomic uncertainty

• £111 million recouped as we recover the cost of claims payments