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The 10 Largest Current Account Surpluses in the World |
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The IMF's 2026 External Sector Report, released July 30, confirmed what the raw numbers had been signaling all year: global current account imbalances widened again in 2025, to about 3.8% of world GDP. China led the list by a margin we have not seen in the modern era. Its surplus surged 74% in a single year. |
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Source: World Bank World Development Indicators / IMF External Sector Report 2026. Current account balance, calendar year 2025, in USD. |
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China's surplus grew by $313 billion in one year. That single-year increase is larger than the total surplus of every other country on this list, including Germany and Japan. In 2024, China posted $422 billion. In 2025, the figure was $735 billion — a 74% jump. The IMF called it the largest current account widening in absolute terms since at least 2000. The cause is exports. Chinese manufacturers flooded global markets with electric vehicles, solar panels, and consumer goods while domestic demand stayed flat. The surplus reached 3.8% of China's GDP and about 0.6% of world GDP, a concentration of global purchasing power that the IMF has flagged as a structural concern. Spain at eighth is another quiet surprise. Tourism revenue and a reformed export sector pushed the country to its largest current account surplus since records began in 1969. Ten years ago, Spain was running deep deficits. |
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Germany and Japan have held the second and third spots for decades. Their surpluses are built on industrial exports — cars, machinery, electronics — and aging populations that save more than they spend. Germany's surplus was €203 billion, down slightly from prior peaks. Japan hit a record ¥31.9 trillion, lifted by income on its overseas investments. The bottom half of the chart is familiar territory: small, open economies with structural advantages. Norway has oil. Singapore has a massive port and financial sector. Switzerland has pharmaceuticals and wealth management. These are not volatile positions. They repeat year after year. The mirror image is also predictable. The United States ran a deficit of $1.1 trillion, the largest in the world by far. The UK was second at $125.4 billion. One country's surplus is another's deficit, and the map of who owes whom has not changed much in two decades. |
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$313 billion The increase in China's current account surplus from 2024 to 2025 — close to the entire GDP of Chile. |
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3.3× How much larger China's surplus is than second-place Germany's. A decade ago, Germany held the top spot. |
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16.7% Singapore's current account surplus as a share of its GDP, the highest ratio among the top 10 by a wide margin. |
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$1.1 trillion The U.S. current account deficit in 2025, exceeding China's and Germany's surpluses combined. |
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3.8% Global current account balances as a share of world GDP in 2025, continuing the upward trend since the pandemic and reversing the post-financial-crisis decline. |
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The IMF's next World Economic Outlook arrives in October 2026 with updated projections. U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods, if sustained or expanded, could redirect trade flows but may not shrink China's overall surplus — they could simply reroute it through Southeast Asia. The U.S. Treasury's next FX Report, due in November 2026, will decide whether to formally label any surplus country a currency manipulator. China's domestic demand is the real variable. If Chinese consumers start spending, the surplus shrinks. If they don't, $1 trillion is within reach. We'll be watching. |
