Dutch Trade in Facts and Figures 2025: Exports, imports and investment – an introduction

No year is without its share of events on the world stage, but in 2024 the world seemed to be in a constant state of turmoil. Events followed one another rapidly and became intertwined: conflicts, economic shocks, and social unrest were increasingly interlinked (Baker, 2025). It was precisely this interconnectedness that often caused individual developments to pale in comparison to the broader dynamic of uncertainty and instability: a state increasingly described using the term permacrisis (Borges de Castro et al., 2024; van IJzendoorn, 2022).

Geopolitical tensions continued to escalate on various fronts. In the Middle East, the conflict in Gaza intensified, Houthi rebels attacked cargo ships in the Red Sea and Israel launched an offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon. At the same time, Iran and Israel attacked one another with direct rocket fire and the authoritarian Assad regime in Syria fell unexpectedly quickly. In Europe, the war in Ukraine became an exhausting war of attrition with no prospect of a quick resolution. Other conflicts, such as the ongoing violence in Sudan, received scant media attention – not because of their lesser impact, but because the world seemed increasingly unable to cope with so many crises and conflicts at one time.

Beyond the human suffering caused, this geopolitical instability had direct consequences for the global economy, particularly for trade routes, commodity prices and investment flows.

At the same time, 2024 was also a year of economic aftershocks. Countries across the world were, to varying degrees, still recovering from the economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. The worldwide spike in inflation that followed the pandemic was largely the result of supply chain disruptions, such as bottlenecks in global value chains and over-reliance on a limited number of suppliers in critical sectors. Higher interest rates and inflation continued to depress household purchasing power in 2024. As a result, private consumption in many countries was still below pre-pandemic levels. The resulting economic uncertainty fuelled growing discontent with globalisation (UNCTAD, 2024).

Tensions and uncertainties were also reflected in voting patterns in some places. The year 2024 was an ‘election year on steroids’, in which a large part of the world’s population elected new leaders (Borges de Castro et al., 2024). Elections in India, the UK, the EU, Russia and Japan, among other countries, received worldwide attention. And it can hardly have gone unnoticed that presidential elections were held in the US. In some cases, this meant a shift of emphasis in policy, while in other countries it led to a more significant change in direction with consequences for international cooperation, the investment climate and trade relationships. These changes are consistent with broader developments: the revival of industrial policy, the growth in multipolar trade networks and rapid technological innovation indicate that globalisation as a system is repositioning itself (UNCTAD, 2024).

For an open economy like that of the Netherlands, these developments are significant. Because of our country’s interconnectedness with global chains, geopolitical tensions and changing economic power relations can have a direct impact on the Dutch business economy, trade flows and the earning power of our economy. In this edition of Dutch Trade in Facts and Figures, we outline how the Netherlands has positioned itself in this dynamic global playing field using the latest figures.

The table below shows a selection of key figures, to be discussed further in this publication. The latest news and reports in the field of globalisation, such as the Internationalisation Monitor, can be found in our dossier.

	Value
	million euros
Gross domestic product (2024*)
GDP
In real prices	1,122,459
International trade in goods (2024*)
Exports
Total	666,526
of which:
Germany	147,203
Belgium	79,190
France	52,158
UK	41,540
US	38,219
Italy	27,201
Spain	22,470
China	20,568
Poland	20,152
Sweden	13,434
Imports
Total	585,790
of which:
Germany	97,642
US	59,657
Belgium	57,223
China	51,309
UK	27,227
France	20,581
Italy	14,862
Norway	14,163
Ireland	13,988
Poland	13,589
International trade in services (2024*)
Exports
Total	306,593
of which:
Germany	43,954
US	32,733
UK	30,476
Ireland	21,074
Switzerland	18,192
France	17,868
Belgium	17,586
Italy	8,515
Spain	7,801
Sweden	7,232
Imports
Total	282,568
of which:
US	50,486
UK	36,312
Germany	33,337
Ireland	23,255
France	17,792
Belgium	17,685
Spain	8,990
Italy	8,058
Poland	7,074
India	6,378
Export earnings (2023*)
Total	375,891
of which:
domestic exports	165,878
re-exports	41,991
services exports	168,023
Export-induced employment (2023*)	1,000 FTE
Total	2,614
Direct
Total	1,233
of which:
domestic exports	451
re-exports	60
services exports	721
Indirect
Total	1,381
of which:
domestic exports	628
re-exports	230
services exports	523

Dutch Trade in Facts and Figures 2025: Exports, imports and investment is published by Statistics Netherlands’ Expertise Centre for Globalisation at the request of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This is the seventh edition. It includes annually recurring key figures and indicators on the internationalisation of the Dutch economy and businesses, as well as figures on the latest trends. These key figures, indicators and descriptive trends offer a quick insight into the most relevant aspects of international trade and the role of the Netherlands in international production chains.

This publication consists of seven descriptive chapters, generously illustrated with figures, infographics and tables. These chapters present the key trends, figures and developments for 2024, and where possible we also look ahead to 2025. Where 2024 figures are not available, the most recent available figures are used. The datasets that form the basis of the figures, tables and infographics in these chapters are so extensive that they have not been included in full here; they can be accessed and downloaded from the main page of this publication.

As is customary, the publication begins with a dashboard with infographics, showing an overview of some of the main findings set out in the chapters. The subsequent chapters focus on the following questions:

• This edition zooms in on three current developments in the area of international trade (Chapter 2). To what extent do we see ‘anticipation effects’ in the goods trade with the US with respect to the threat of import tariffs? How does the EU compare in different areas to other major economic and/or military global powers? And how is the Dutch trade in military and dual-use goods developing?
• What goods and how many of them does the Netherlands trade, and with which countries (Chapter 3)?
• What services does the Netherlands trade, to what extent, and with which countries (Chapter 4)?
• How much does the Netherlands invest internationally, and how much do other countries invest in the Netherlands? And what role do multinationals play (Chapter 5)?
• What does the Netherlands earn from exports, and how much employment is involved in exports (Chapter 6)?
• How do goods and services from the rest of the world work their way into the Dutch economy (Chapter 7)?
• How large is the footprint of Dutch imports (Chapter 8)?

References

Open references