Economy · Current account balance · South Africa
South Africa’s current account balance rose to −0.42% of GDP in 2025.
−0.42% of GDP
2025
Up 0.22 pp from 2024.
Updated 8 Oct 2026
In plain words
−0.42% of GDP
What it is. The current account balance adds up what South Africa earns from the rest of the world and what it pays out. It covers trade in goods and services, income on investment and work abroad, and transfers such as remittances. A positive figure means the country is a net lender to the world, and a negative one means it must borrow or sell assets to cover the gap. Cross-border purchases of shares, bonds and property are recorded in the financial account instead, so the measure shows the size of the gap and says little about how it is financed.
Higher is better. A surplus means the country earns more abroad than it spends, which lowers its reliance on foreign investors to fund the difference. The latest figure, for 2025, is −0.42% of GDP, up from −0.64% a year earlier, a gain of 0.22 percentage points. Since 2016 the balance has ranged from a low of −3% of GDP in 2018 to a high of 3.8% of GDP in 2021. The 2025 reading sits in the lower half of that range and well above the 2018 low.
Why it matters. A small deficit means South Africa needs only a modest amount of foreign money to cover what it spends abroad beyond its earnings. That leaves the rand and government borrowing costs somewhat less exposed to a sudden shift in investor mood than in 2018. Households and firms feel the effect through import prices and interest rates, which depend partly on how easily that foreign funding keeps arriving.
| Period | Current account balance · South Africa |
|---|---|
| 2016 | −2.6% of GDP |
| 2017 | −2.4% of GDP |
| 2018 | −3% of GDP |
| 2019 | −2.6% of GDP |
| 2020 | 2% of GDP |
| 2021 | 3.8% of GDP |
| 2022 | −0.3% of GDP |
| 2023 | −1.1% of GDP |
| 2024 | −0.64% of GDP |
| 2025 | −0.42% 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, South Africa, 2025; source World Bank, World Development Indicators (CC BY 4.0), retrieved 8 Oct 2026; https://data.strata-af.com/economy/current-account-balance/south-africa
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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.