Bermuda Export Trade Data: $22.28M in 2023, Down 33.5%

The USA Dominates a Shrinking Export Total

Bermuda shipped $22.28 million worth of goods abroad in 2023, the latest year with verified trade data in this dataset. That total marks a decline of 33.5% from the $33.53 million recorded in 2022, the strongest year in the five-year span this dataset covers. United States absorbed the overwhelming majority of that total, worth $20.04 million, or 89.9% of everything Bermuda exported.

Canada ranked a distant second at 2.5% ($561,089), just ahead of the United Kingdom at 2.3% ($508,597). Netherlands took fourth place at 1.5% ($345,245), followed by Finland at 1.4% ($306,618) and Germany at 1.0% ($216,359). Denmark added 0.2% ($54,578), Ireland contributed another 0.2% ($53,573), and Spain and Portugal closed out the top ten at 0.2% ($36,321) and 0.1% ($30,303) respectively. Together, the top three destinations made up 94.7% of total export value.

That level of concentration is extreme even by the standards of small island economies. Nine out of every ten dollars of Bermuda's exports went to a single buyer in 2023, leaving the remaining nine destinations on this list to split what little was left. The pattern is not new. globalEDGE, the Michigan State University trade research center, lists the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, in that order, as Bermuda's top three trade partners, the same three countries that top the export list here. Bermuda's economy leans heavily on international business and financial services rather than goods production, which helps explain why the physical export totals involved are so small. A shift in U.S. demand for Bermuda's goods would carry an outsized effect on the total, given how little volume the remaining partners currently absorb. Canada and the United Kingdom's distant second and third-place positions likely reflect a mix of historical trade ties and Bermuda's status as a British Overseas Territory, while the string of smaller European buyers rounding out the top ten, the Netherlands, Finland, Germany, Denmark, Ireland, Spain, and Portugal, points to scattered, low-volume shipments rather than any established commercial relationship.

An Unclassified Category Leads a Small, Varied Mix

A broad category labeled "commodities not specified according to kind" led all export categories in 2023, worth $6.07 million and accounting for 27.2% of total export value. Beverages, spirits and vinegar followed at 17.8% ($3.96 million), and ships, boats and floating structures ranked third at 11.6% ($2.60 million).

Electrical machinery and equipment added 11.4% ($2.55 million), while optical, photographic and medical instruments contributed 9.8% ($2.19 million). Machinery and mechanical appliances brought in 9.6% ($2.13 million), and aircraft, spacecraft and related parts added 2.4% ($536,404). Precious and semi-precious stones and metals contributed 2.4% ($534,782), miscellaneous base metal products added 1.4% ($319,628), and vehicles closed out the top ten at 1.4% ($319,159).

The top category's generic label reflects how trade classification systems handle goods that customs authorities group under a catch-all code rather than a specific product heading, a pattern common among smaller reporting economies. Beyond that entry, the list reads like what would be expected from a small, service-driven economy shipping a modest mix of goods rather than manufacturing at scale. Beverages, boats, electronics, and precision instruments each contribute a meaningful but modest slice, with no single specific product category coming close to matching the concentration seen on the buyer side. Aircraft and spacecraft parts, precious metals and stones, base metal products, and vehicles round out the list at smaller values still, each likely reflecting one-off or low-frequency shipments rather than an established production or re-export line. That spread across ten fairly different product types, spanning drinks, transport equipment, electronics, and instruments, stands in contrast to how tightly Bermuda's buyer list concentrates around a single country.

A Volatile Five-Year Path

Bermuda's exports swung sharply over the past five years, with no clear direction sustained for more than two years running. Exports fell from $26.83 million in 2019 to $19.10 million in 2020, likely reflecting disrupted shipping and softer demand during the early stages of the global pandemic, then rebounded to $28.63 million in 2021 and climbed further to $33.53 million in 2022, the highest total in the period. That growth reversed sharply in 2023, with exports falling 33.5% to $22.28 million.

The scale of the swings, a sharp drop in 2020 followed by two years of recovery and then the steepest decline of the period in 2023, points to an export base small and concentrated enough that a handful of shipments can move the total meaningfully from one year to the next. For a closer look at how individual partner countries or product categories break down year over year, the data panels above provide the full detail behind these figures.