Economy · Exports of goods and services · Botswana
Botswana’s exports of goods and services rose to 32% of GDP in 2025.
32% of GDP
2025
Up 5 pp from 2024.
Updated 8 Oct 2026
In plain words
32% of GDP
What it is. This measure takes the value of everything a country sells to the rest of the world, goods and services together, and divides it by the size of the economy. The goods side covers items such as minerals and the services side covers items such as tourism and transport. Because the figure is a share of GDP, it moves when export earnings change and also when the rest of the economy grows or shrinks. Imported inputs used to make exports stay in the export value, so the figure includes some foreign content.
Higher is better. A higher share means more of the economy earns income from foreign buyers, which brings in foreign currency to pay for imports and supports the public finances. Botswana's latest figure is 32% of GDP for 2025, up 5 percentage points from 27.1% of GDP a year earlier. Since 2016 the range runs from a low of 27.1% of GDP in 2024 to a high of 54.6% of GDP in 2016. The latest reading therefore sits just above the bottom of that range and well below the level of 2016.
Why it matters. The share of output sold abroad shapes how much foreign currency Botswana has to pay for fuel, food and machinery. At 32% of GDP, households and firms depend on foreign buyers far less than in 2016, when the share was 54.6% of GDP. The recovery from 27.1% of GDP in 2024 gives the state more export-linked income to draw on. The next annual reading will show whether that rise continues.
| Period | Exports of goods and services · Botswana |
|---|---|
| 2016 | 54.6% of GDP |
| 2017 | 42.9% of GDP |
| 2018 | 44.2% of GDP |
| 2019 | 37.1% of GDP |
| 2020 | 31.3% of GDP |
| 2021 | 41.8% of GDP |
| 2022 | 43.5% of GDP |
| 2023 | 32.9% of GDP |
| 2024 | 27.1% of GDP |
| 2025 | 32% of GDP |
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators (CC BY 4.0) · Licence: CC BY 4.0
How to read this number
- Source
- Who published the figure
- Published
- When they released it
- Verified
- When we last checked it against the source
Every change is logged in Corrections. How the figure is made: Methodology.
Cite this number
Show text
Strata-AF™ Data, Exports of goods and services, Botswana, 2025; source World Bank, World Development Indicators (CC BY 4.0), retrieved 8 Oct 2026; https://data.strata-af.com/economy/exports/botswana
Data insights · Worked out from the published figures
What this means
Working this out from the published figures…
Strata AI commentary is coming — reviewed, dated, and generated only from the figures on this page.
Methodology
Exports of goods and services as a share of GDP. Unit: % of GDP.
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators (series NE.EXP.GNFS.ZS), retrieved through the World Bank API and published under CC BY 4.0. Updated annually; the World Bank's own source notes apply.