Economy · Current account balance · Seychelles
Seychelles’ current account balance rose to −5.7% of GDP in 2025.
−5.7% of GDP
2025
Up 1.8 pp from 2024.
Updated 8 Oct 2026
In plain words
−5.7% of GDP
What it is. The current account balance adds up what a country earns from selling goods and services abroad, income received from overseas and transfers such as remittances, then subtracts what it pays out on the same items. A negative figure means the economy as a whole spends more abroad than it earns. For a small island economy that buys much of its food and fuel from overseas, the balance moves with import costs and with earnings from services sold to visitors. It leaves out capital and financial flows, so it shows the size of the gap but not how that gap is financed.
Higher is better. A higher balance is better because the country covers more of its overseas bills from its own earnings, which means less borrowing and less drawing on reserves. The latest figure, for 2025, is −5.7% of GDP, an improvement of 1.8 percentage points on the −7.5% of GDP recorded a year earlier. Since 2016 the balance has ranged from a low of −12.5% of GDP in 2020 to a high of −2.2% of GDP in 2017. The 2025 reading sits closer to that 2017 best than to the 2020 low, though it is still a deficit.
Why it matters. A deficit of −5.7% of GDP means Seychelles still relies on outside financing, whether loans, investment inflows or reserves, to pay for what it brings in. A smaller gap than a year earlier eases pressure on foreign currency supplies, which matters to importers and to households buying imported goods. For the state, a narrower deficit leaves more room to manage external debt payments. The 2017 level of −2.2% of GDP shows how much narrower the gap has been within this window.
| Period | Current account balance · Seychelles |
|---|---|
| 2016 | −2.6% of GDP |
| 2017 | −2.2% of GDP |
| 2018 | −2.3% of GDP |
| 2019 | −2.8% of GDP |
| 2020 | −12.5% of GDP |
| 2021 | −10.8% of GDP |
| 2022 | −7.1% of GDP |
| 2023 | −7.1% of GDP |
| 2024 | −7.5% of GDP |
| 2025 | −5.7% of GDP |
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators (CC BY 4.0) · Licence: CC BY 4.0
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Strata-AF™ Data, Current account balance, Seychelles, 2025; source World Bank, World Development Indicators (CC BY 4.0), retrieved 8 Oct 2026; https://data.strata-af.com/economy/current-account-balance/seychelles
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Methodology
Current account balance as a share of GDP. Unit: % of GDP. A negative value is a deficit.
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators (series BN.CAB.XOKA.GD.ZS), retrieved through the World Bank API and published under CC BY 4.0. Updated annually; the World Bank's own source notes apply.