Official Statistics

Number of exporting registered businesses in the UK, 2021

Published 25 April 2024

1. Headline metrics 

In 2021 there were over 2.75 million registered businesses in the UK, of which around 326,000 (around 11.8%) were exporters of goods and/or services. 

In 2021 there were over 2.74 million registered SMEs in the UK, of which around 322,000 (around 11.7%) were exporters of goods and/or services.

2. 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 (GB) and Northern Ireland (NI) respectively.

However, no estimate is currently published for the United Kingdom (UK) as a whole, and the estimates for GB and NI exclude some sectors of the economy, most notably the financial sector. This Department for Business and Trade (DBT) release uses ONS and NISRA data to provide estimates covering all business sectors in the UK for 2021, which is the most recent year available for all the different sources used.  

3. Sources 

The ONS publication UK Business: Activity, Size and Location 2021 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 (2.75 million) and the total number of registered SME businesses (2.74 million).

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, and Non-profit Body or Mutual Association. 

The ONS dataset Annual Business Survey exporters and importers 2021 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 sector. The release reports that 11.4% of GB businesses in the relevant sectors and 11.3% of SME businesses are exporters. 

The NISRA data portal provides access to information on registered businesses exporting goods and/or services in Northern Ireland in 2021. This information comes from the Northern Ireland Annual Business Inquiry (NIABI) which covers the same sectors as the ONS survey. This tells us that 21.5% of NI businesses in the relevant sectors and 21.4% of SME businesses are exporters. 

4. Estimation methodology 

The main assumption made to produce these estimates is that the proportion of exporters 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: 

1. calculating the total number of exporters in the UK non-financial sectors by summing the numbers published in the ABS and NIABI 

2. 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 about 92% of the total business population in 2021 

3. uprating the total number of exporters calculated at step 1 to include the missing 8% identified at step 2 

4. repeating these calculations for SMEs only 

5. 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 for 2021 because this is the most recent year for which data is available in all the sources which we have used. The COVID-19 pandemic was still impacting the economy in 2021, 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. In addition, the UK left the European Union on 31 December 2020 which may also have affected exports data. 

6. For further information 

This publication was produced by the Statistics and Data Science Team. If you have any enquiries about the content, please contact statistics@businessandtrade.gov.uk.