EU high-tech trade surplus up to €32.4 billion in 2025

In 2025, the EU imported €534.1 billion worth of high-tech products and exported €566.5 billion, resulting in a trade surplus of €32.4 billion. After 4 consecutive years of trade deficits (2020-2023), the EU trade balance in high-tech products has been positive for 2 years in a row. 

Since 2015, imports have increased by an average of 6% year-on-year (+€239.9 billion) and exports by 7% (+€265.4 billion).

In terms of sold production, the EU produced €532 billion worth of high-tech products in 2025. Since 2015, when it produced €287 billion worth of these products, production has increased by an average of 6% year-on-year.

Source datasets: Eurostat extraction; ds-059331 (trade), ds-059367 (PRODCOM 2025) and ds-059358 (PRODCOM 2015-2024)

Who are the EU’s main trade partners for high-tech products?

In 2025, more than half of the EU’s high-tech imports came from China (28%; €150.4 billion) and the United States (25%; €131.4 billion). Switzerland (6%; €32.6 billion) was the other top trading partner. 

Imports from China consisted mostly of electronics-telecommunications (48% of its total imports to the EU) and computers and office machines (31%), while the United States supplied mainly aerospace products (36%) and pharmaceuticals (33%). In Switzerland’s case, 71% of imports were pharmaceuticals. 

Source dataset: Eurostat extraction; ds-059331  

When it comes to exports, in 2025, the United States was the top trading partner (34%; €195.1 billion). The United Kingdom followed (9%; €52.5 billion), ahead of China (8%; €48.1 billion). 

To the United States, the EU exported mostly pharmaceuticals (62% of all exports to this country) and aerospace products (12%). Exports to the United Kingdom were more diversified: 23% were pharmaceuticals, while aerospace products and electronics-telecommunications each represented 19%, and 13% were scientific instruments. Exports to China showed similar variety, with electronics-telecommunications at 30%, aerospace products at 27%, scientific instruments at 20%, and pharmaceuticals at 13%.