Correct as at 4 November 2026.
The UK’s goods and services trade deficit widened by £1.4bn to £8.0bn in the three months to August 2026, compared with the three months to May, in figures that feed growth measurement.
How big is the UK trade deficit?
It was £8.0bn in the three months to August, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said, up £1.4bn on the three months to May.
The gap is the net of two very different positions. The goods deficit widened by £2.5bn to £59.1bn, while the services surplus is estimated to have widened by £1.1bn to £51.1bn.
In the goods account, exports were £104.6bn and imports £163.7bn over the three months. Across goods and services together, imports rose by £2.7bn and exports by £1.3bn.
With inflation removed, the total deficit widened by £0.3bn to £8.1bn. The ONS said the three-month movement arose because goods imports increased while exports fell.
For context, the ONS’s balance of payments figures put the April to June total trade deficit at £4.2bn, or 0.5% of GDP, narrowed from £9.4bn in the first quarter. The goods deficit in that quarter was £55.5bn and the services surplus £51.3bn.
Which trading partners moved the monthly figures?
The EU and non-EU countries, in opposite directions.
The ONS splits partners into the EU and everyone else in its headline release. Goods imports fell by £1.3bn, or 2.3%, in August against July, as imports from non-EU countries dropped by £1.7bn (6.3%). Imports from the EU rose by £0.5bn (1.6%).
Goods exports fell by £1.1bn (3.1%) in the month. Exports to the EU fell by £1.2bn (7.3%), while exports to non-EU countries rose by £0.2bn (0.9%).
Imports from the EU were £3.0bn higher than from non-EU countries in August, while exports to the EU were £2.8bn lower than exports to non-EU countries.
A worked example from the published numbers: in August, goods exports were £34.4bn and goods imports £54.2bn, a monthly goods gap of £19.8bn.
Three of those months make up the quarterly figure, but monthly numbers are more erratic, and the ONS says they may not indicate longer-term trends.
Services were close to flat. Early estimates show imports up £0.1bn (0.2%) and exports up £0.2bn (0.4%) in August.
The ONS also cited the S&P Global UK Services PMI (a survey of purchasing managers) for August, which reported higher fuel and transport costs, the conflict in the Middle East and softer demand in Europe as weighing on exports.
Country-level data are available for 2025, covering 236 countries and 122 commodities.
How reliable are the figures?
Usable, but with clear limits.
All headline trade figures exclude non-monetary gold and other precious metals, which the ONS says can be large and volatile and distort underlying trends. Figures are in current prices, not adjusted for inflation, unless stated.
The latest services numbers are an early estimate built from April to June data, and they can be revised.
The goods numbers have already moved: the April to June goods balance was revised up by £5.2bn, and the ONS said fuel revisions were particularly large because of substantial increases in crude oil prices in that quarter. Revisions run back to January 1997.
Brexit changed how goods trade with the EU is recorded. The collection of data for goods moving between Great Britain and the EU changed from the Intrastat survey to customs declarations from 2021 for exports and 2022 for imports.
A structural break remains in the EU series from January 2021.
The ONS has separately said that Eurostat data should not be considered an authoritative depiction of trade with the EU.
The UK Statistics Authority removed National Statistics status from UK trade on 14 November 2014 after errors in travel expenditure estimates. The ONS says it is working to regain accredited status.
If you compare these figures with other sources, such as the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, note that the ONS records imports by country of dispatch, while other bodies may use country of origin. The two can give different partner totals.
The ONS advises caution when drawing conclusions from the EU series, given the break that remains from January 2021.
