Balance Of Payments
Measuring UK transactions with the rest of the world
The Balance of Payments is one of the United Kingdom's key economic statistics. It measures the economic transactions between United Kingdom residents and the rest of the world. It also draws a series of balances between inward and outward transactions, provides an overall net flow of transactions between UK residents and the rest of the world and reports how that flow is funded.
Economic transactions include:
- exports and imports of goods such as oil, agricultural products, other raw materials, machinery and transport equipment, computers, white goods and clothing;
- exports and imports of services such as international transport, travel, financial and business services;
- income flows such as dividends and interest earned by non-residents on investments in the UK and by UK residents investing abroad;
- financial flows, such as investment in shares debt securities and loans; and
- transfers, which are offsetting entries to any one-sided transactions listed above, such as foreign aid and funds brought by migrants to the UK.
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Latest headline figures