Number of exporting registered businesses in the UK, 2016 to 2024
Published 20 August 2026
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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/number-of-exporting-registered-businesses-in-the-uk-2016-to-2024/number-of-exporting-registered-businesses-in-the-uk-2016-to-2024
Official statistics in development
Headline metrics
In 2024 there were over 2.7 million registered businesses in the UK, of which around 335,000 (around 12.3%) were exporters of goods and/or services.
In 2024 there were over 2.7 million registered small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the UK, of which around 331,000 (around 12.2%) were exporters of goods and/or services.
Table 1: number of exporting businesses, all exporting businesses, 2018 to 2024
| 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023r | 2024 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of registered exporters | 265,000 | 276,000 | 297,000 | 276,000 | 325,000 | 317,000 | 335,000 |
| Number of registered businesses | 2,656,690 | 2,705,680 | 2,736,995 | 2,752,630 | 2,755,255 | 2,714,345 | 2,712,065 |
| % exporters | 10.0% | 10.2% | 10.9% | 10.0% | 11.8% | 11.7% | 12.3% |
Notes
Notes for table 1:
- r = revised
Data for 2016 and 2017 are available in the tables published alongside this release. These estimates are based on survey data sources developed to provide the best estimates at a point in time. Changes over time therefore have an additional degree of uncertainty.
Care should be taken when comparing movements over time as small increases/decreases could be due to the volatility of the figures caused by underlying changes to the business population.
Table 2: number of exporting businesses, small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) registered businesses, 2018 to 2024
| 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023r | 2024 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of registered SME exporters | 262,000 | 272,000 | 293,000 | 272,000 | 321,000 | 313,000 | 331,000 |
| Number of registered SME businesses | 2,648,010 | 2,696,795 | 2,727,960 | 2,743,815 | 2,746,435 | 2,705,205 | 2,702,775 |
| % SME exporters | 9.9% | 10.1% | 10.8% | 9.9% | 11.7% | 11.6% | 12.2% |
Notes
Notes for table 2:
- r = revised
- data for 2016 and 2017 are available in the tables published alongside this release
- an SME is a business with fewer than 250 employees
These estimates are based on survey data sources developed to provide the best estimates at a point in time. Changes over time therefore have an additional degree of uncertainty. Care should be taken when comparing movements over time as small increases/decreases could be due to the volatility of the figures caused by underlying changes to the business population.
Data explanatory notes
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) publish estimates of the number and proportion of exporting registered businesses in Great Britain and Northern Ireland respectively.
However, no estimate is currently published for the United Kingdom as a whole, and the estimates for Great Britain and Northern Ireland exclude some sectors of the economy, most notably the financial sector.
This Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (BIST) release uses ONS and NISRA data to provide estimates covering all business sectors in the UK between 2016 and 2024, which is the most recent year available for all the different sources used.
ONS included a sample re-optimisation in the estimates from 2016 onwards and therefore, there is a discontinuity between 2015 and 2016. Because of this, BIST has not produced estimates of exporters prior to 2016.
Estimates for 2023 for Great Britain were revised by ONS in their exporters and importers release published in June 2026, and these revisions have been carried through into this BIST release. Similarly, data for 2023 for Northern Ireland were revised by NISRA and these revisions have also been included in this release.
Sources
The ONS publication UK Business: activity, size and location provides information on the size of the total business population by size of business and location. It includes all businesses registered for Value Added Tax (VAT) and/or Pay As You Earn (PAYE). This provides data on the total number of registered businesses and the total number of registered SME businesses in each year.
An SME is a business with fewer than 250 employees. In our analysis, we have defined a business using the following legal statuses:
-
company
-
sole proprietor
-
partnership
-
non-profit body or mutual association
The ONS dataset Annual Business Survey exporters and importers provides information on registered businesses exporting goods and/or services in Great Britain by various characteristics including size. This information comes from the ONS Annual Business Survey (ABS) which does not cover the financial sector, medical and dental practice activities, and part of the agriculture, forestry and fishing sectors.
The release reports that in 2024, 12.1% of British businesses in the relevant sectors and 12.0% of SME businesses were exporters.
The NISRA data portal provides access to information on registered businesses exporting goods and/or services in Northern Ireland. This information comes from the Northern Ireland Annual Business Inquiry (NIABI) which covers the same sectors as the ONS survey. This tells us that in 2024, 22.6% of Northern Irish businesses in the relevant sectors and 22.5% of SME Northern Irish businesses were exporters.
Estimation methodology
The main assumption made to produce these estimates is that the proportion of exporting businesses in the missing sectors is the same as that in the sectors which are covered in the ABS and NIABI.
The estimates were produced using the following steps:
- calculating the total number of exporters in the UK non-financial sectors by summing the numbers published in the ABS and NIABI
- calculating the difference between the number of enterprises in sectors covered by the ABS and NIABI and the total number of enterprises in the UK from the ONS UK Business publication. This showed that the ABS and NIABI sectors accounted for between 92% and 95% of the total business population in the years included
- uprating the total number of exporters calculated at step 1 to include the missing percentage identified for each year at step 2
- repeating these calculations for SMEs only
Quality information
In order to produce these estimates, we have assumed that the proportion of exporting businesses in the missing sectors is the same as that in the sectors which are included in the ABS and NIABI. This means that this element of the estimate is less robust than that which comes directly from the surveys and from the UK Business publication.
We have done this because we have no information on which to base a better estimate – there are no alternative sources of this information. This is why we have marked this release as official statistics in development.
Estimates from ABS and NIABI are survey-based central estimates (with confidence intervals) and are not exact administrative counts. As such, any significance (statistical or otherwise) attached to annual change must be appropriately considered. Information on the survey methodology and quality of estimates are available for both the ABS and NIABI.
The ABS Technical Report provides detailed information on the sectors currently excluded from the survey in section 3.1 and includes information on sectors included and excluded from the survey over time in Annex C. The finance sector was removed from the survey in 2008 as it was no longer required following a change to the European Union Structural Business Statistics Regulation.
Quality and methodology information is also available for the UK Business release, which is based on a comprehensive register (the Inter-departmental Business Register (IDBR)) of all VAT and PAYE registered businesses rather than a survey.
Businesses with no employees and which operate below the VAT registration threshold are not included on the IDBR and so any of these businesses which export are not included in these estimates.
We have provided estimates up to 2024 because this is the most recent year for which data is available in all the sources which we have used. The COVID-19 pandemic impacted the economy from 2020 onwards, due to lockdown measures being introduced to mitigate its spread and prolonged periods of business closures.
It also affected response rates to business surveys including ABS and NIABI, and ONS warn that 2020 estimates are more likely to be influenced by extreme values and variability taking place in the population. In addition, the UK left the European Union on 31 December 2020, which may also have affected exports data.
We have started our estimates in 2016 because an Annual Business Survey (ABS) sample re-optimisation was included in the estimates from 2016 onwards. This was last carried out in 2016 to improve the efficiency of the ABS sample, estimation and reduce sample variability as part of the regular process to improve estimates.
This re-optimisation led to a discontinuity between 2015 and 2016 within small and medium sized businesses (those with fewer than 250 employment). Therefore, users should not make year-on-year comparisons between 2015 and 2016.
Pre-release access
Principle T3 of the Statistics Authority Code of Practice for Statistics requires that access to official statistics before their public release is limited to certain individuals. This includes those involved in the production of the statistics and the preparation of the release, and those involved for quality assurance and operational purposes.
Pre-release access may only be granted in accordance with the rules and principles set out in the Pre-release Access to Official Statistics Order 2008. In addition, the order requires that records are published of those who have access prior to public release.
The role holders who received 24 hours pre-release access to ‘Number of Exporting Registered Businesses in the UK, 2016 to 2024’ were:
- BIST Director General, Domestic and International Markets and Exports
- BIST Director of Exports
- BIST Director of Analysis
- BIST Deputy Director, Exports and Spatial Analysis
- BIST Senior Economist, Strategic Exports Analysis
Further updates to these statistics
The next publication in this series is planned for summer 2027.
Revisions policy
Data will be revised in line with the ABS and NIABI revisions policies, which state that scheduled revisions will take place the year after figures are first published. The latest year is therefore always provisional. Years for which data have been revised will be marked with an ‘r’.
Where unscheduled revisions occur, for example following the discovery of an error in ABS, NIABI, or in BIST’s own processing, BIST will consider the impact on the exporters release and may make revisions if appropriate.
Because a greater degree of rounding is applied to the exporters release due to its methodology, smaller corrections or revisions to the ABS or NIABI data may not affect the published exporters estimates. If unscheduled revisions occur, they will also be marked with an ‘r’ and an explanation included in the release.
The DBT statistical revisions policy (developed before the recent Machinery of Government changes) sets out the revisions policy for these statistics, which has been developed in accordance with the UK Statistics Authority Code of Practice for Statistics.
Regulation of Official Statistics
Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to.
You are welcome to contact us directly with any comments about how we meet these standards.
Alternatively, you can contact OSR by emailing regulation@statistics.gov.uk or via the OSR website.
Contacts
This publication was produced by the Statistics and Data Team. If you have any enquiries about the content, contact business.statistics@businessandtrade.gov.uk.