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Cross-Border Trade Statistics

InterTradeIreland closely follows and draws insights from cross-border trade statistics. Cross-border trade in goods is recorded by Ireland’s Central Statistics Office (CSO) on a monthly basis. Northern Ireland’s Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) records cross-border trade in goods and services on an annual basis.


Year to date monthly cross-border trade in goods

  • Trade
    North/South
    €432
    £371
    Million
    Trade
    South/North
    €372
    £320
    Million
    Cross-border trade in goods 2023
    January
    The latest trade figures show that cross-border trade in goods for January 2023 is valued at €804 million. This is a 21 percent increase compared to January 2022.

    The CSO publish monthly figures on cross-border trade in goods with a two-month lag.
  • Trade
    North/South
    €5.4
    £4.8
    Billion
    Trade
    South/North
    €4.9
    £4.4
    Billion
    Cross-border trade in goods 2022
    January - December
    The latest trade figures from the CSO show that cross-border trade in goods for January to December 2022 is valued at €10.3 billion. This is an increase of €2.5 billion on 2021.

    The CSO publish monthly figures on cross-border trade in goods with a two-month lag.

Annual Cross-Border Trade in Goods and Services

2020
All data 2020*

Statistics on
Cross-border goods & services trade
on the island of Ireland

Total Cross-Border Trade
€9.5bn
£8.3bn
  • €6.0 bn
    £5.17 bn
    North - South
  • €3.5 bn
    £3.07 bn
    South - North

Source: Northern Ireland Economic Trade Statistics (NIETS), NISRA 2021. *Data on trade was gathered from NISRA’S NIETS survey, which currently has a lag of approximately 2 years. The 2021 figures are the most recently available cross-border trade annual totals. This page was updated in January 2023.

Exporter Benefits by Firm Type

InterTradeIreland undertook research in 2019 which showed that cross-border traders have higher productivity, turnover and employment figures.

Sources: BESES Statistics (NISRA 2018) for NI firms and CSO CIP for Irish firms.

  • Productivity
    'Productivity' bar shows the higher productivity levels experienced by cross-border traders by goods and services sectors, over firms that do not export
  • Turnover
    'Turnover' bar shows the higher turnover levels experienced by cross-border traders by goods and services sectors, over firms that do not export
  • Employment
    'Employment' bar shows the higher employment levels experienced by cross-border traders by goods and services sectors, over firms that do not export
  • 0% 50% 100% 150% 200%
  • NI Goods - ROI Exports Only
    9
    93
    46
  • NI Services - ROI Exports Only
    7
    70
    33
  • Irish-owned Goods - UK Exports Only
    45
    142
    118

Cross-border shopping activity

Our Retail Monitor records the number of cars parked in central shopping car parks in the border areas of the island both North and South as an indicator of cross-border shopping activity.

Findings from InterTradeIreland’s final publication of the Retail Monitor (Q4 2022) show that 8% of cars in retail parks in Ireland are from Northern Ireland and 30% of cars in retail parks in Northern Ireland are from Ireland, which is no change on the previous quarter.

Enniskillen continues to have the highest incidence of South to North cross-border shopping, with 57% of cars in retail parks being from Ireland, up 9% on Q2 2022. This is followed by Derry-Londonderry (22%) and Newry (10%). In terms of North to South cross-border shopping in Q4 2022, Dundalk had the highest recorded number of cars in retail parks from Northern Ireland at 10%, followed by Letterkenny (7%) and Monaghan (7%).

Refer to the infographic for more details.