Economy · Imports of goods and services · Lesotho
Lesotho’s imports of goods and services rose to 104.5% of GDP in 2025.
104.5% of GDP
2025
Up 1.4 pp from 2024.
Updated 8 Oct 2026
In plain words
104.5% of GDP
What it is. This measure adds up everything Lesotho buys from abroad, both goods and services such as freight, insurance and travel, and divides the total by GDP. Imports are counted at their full value while GDP counts only the value added at home, so the share can exceed the size of the economy. It leaves out what the imports consist of, whether food, fuel, machinery or inputs for factories.
Neither way is good in itself. A high share can reflect an economy that is open to trade and gets what it needs from abroad. It can also reflect heavy reliance on foreign supply and a large bill to pay in foreign currency. For that reason the direction carries no verdict by itself. The latest figure is 104.5% of GDP in 2025, up from 103.1% a year earlier, a rise of 1.4 percentage points. Since 2016 the share has ranged from a low of 90.5% of GDP in 2016 to a high of 104.5% of GDP in 2025, so the latest reading sits at the top of that range.
Why it matters. At this level a large part of what Lesotho's households consume and its firms use as inputs comes from abroad, so import prices and the exchange rate reach shop shelves and business costs quickly. The state and the wider economy need steady foreign earnings to pay for imports on this scale. The 2025 reading is the highest since 2016, so the next annual figure will show whether the rise continues.
| Period | Imports of goods and services · Lesotho |
|---|---|
| 2016 | 90.5% of GDP |
| 2017 | 98.9% of GDP |
| 2018 | 94.6% of GDP |
| 2019 | 94.3% of GDP |
| 2020 | 96.6% of GDP |
| 2021 | 93% of GDP |
| 2022 | 95.9% of GDP |
| 2023 | 98% of GDP |
| 2024 | 103.1% of GDP |
| 2025 | 104.5% of GDP |
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators (CC BY 4.0) · Licence: CC BY 4.0
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Strata-AF™ Data, Imports of goods and services, Lesotho, 2025; source World Bank, World Development Indicators (CC BY 4.0), retrieved 8 Oct 2026; https://data.strata-af.com/economy/imports/lesotho
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Methodology
Imports of goods and services as a share of GDP. Unit: % of GDP.
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators (series NE.IMP.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.