Luxembourg Import Data: $26.09B in 2023, Down 2.09%

Cheap Fuel Taxes Shape What Luxembourg Buys

Luxembourg imported $26.09 billion worth of goods in 2023, down 2.09% from $26.64 billion in 2022. Vehicles topped every import category at 15.61% of the total, worth $4.07 billion, and mineral fuels ranked second at 12.80% ($3.34 billion). Luxembourg's lower excise duties and VAT keep fuel prices below those of its neighbors, and the country hosts the world's largest service station, which serves up to 25,000 vehicles on busy days and sells around 260 million liters of fuel a year. Cross-border commuters from France, Belgium and Germany routinely fill up in Luxembourg on their way to and from work, a practice that inflates the country's fuel import volumes well beyond what its own small population would otherwise consume. The vehicles category shows a related pattern. Lower registration taxes and other purchase incentives make new cars cheaper to buy in Luxembourg than in several neighboring countries, drawing buyers who live just across the border and pulling import volumes up well past what the country's own resident population would need.

Machinery contributed 7.98% ($2.08 billion), and electrical machinery added 6.16% ($1.61 billion). Plastics supplied 5.24% ($1.37 billion). Iron and steel contributed 4.56% ($1.19 billion). ArcelorMittal's Luxembourg plants run on scrap metal as their main raw material, sourced mostly within a 300km radius and melted in electric arc furnaces, a production model the company adopted after domestic iron ore ran out decades ago. Pharmaceutical products added 2.84% ($741.04 million), and rubber and articles thereof contributed 2.81% ($731.71 million), raw material feeding the same tire manufacturing that shows up prominently among Luxembourg's exports. Iron or steel articles supplied 2.42% ($632.13 million), and beverages, spirits and vinegar closed out the top ten at 2.40% ($625.55 million). Reading Luxembourg's import and export lists together tells a coherent industrial story: scrap steel and rubber arrive as raw material, get processed by ArcelorMittal and Goodyear's local operations, and leave again as finished steel products and tires bound for markets across Europe.

Belgium and Germany Together Supply Nearly Half of Imports

Belgium supplied 24.07% of Luxembourg's imports in 2023, worth $6.28 billion, more than any other source. Germany ranked a close second at 22.25% ($5.80 billion), and France took third at 10.50% ($2.74 billion). Together, these three immediate neighbors made up 56.83% of total import value, an even higher concentration than what shows up on Luxembourg's export list. That gap between import and export concentration makes sense given the vehicle and fuel dynamics described above: cross-border purchases naturally route through the same neighboring countries where the buyers themselves live and work, reinforcing an already tight regional trade pattern.

Shipments recorded as "Other Europe, nes," a catch-all for European sources that trade data cannot pin to a single country, added 7.68% ($2.00 billion). Netherlands supplied 4.71% ($1.23 billion), and Italy contributed 3.34% ($871.02 million). China added 3.31% ($862.78 million), and United States supplied 2.54% ($661.85 million). Poland contributed 2.32% ($605.04 million), and Spain closed out the top ten at 1.82% ($476.04 million).

Imports Have Eased for a Second Straight Year

Luxembourg's import total has climbed for most of the past five years before pulling back slightly, closely tracking the pattern already visible on the export side of its trade. It stood at $22.67 billion in 2019, eased to $20.88 billion in 2020 as the pandemic disrupted trade, then climbed to $25.54 billion in 2021 and further to $26.64 billion in 2022, the high point of the five-year window. It eased to $26.09 billion in 2023, a second consecutive year of only modest movement.

That steadiness reflects Luxembourg's position as a small, wealthy economy tightly integrated with its three immediate neighbors rather than exposed to volatile global commodity markets. Vehicles and fuel move with cross-border tax incentives and commuting patterns more than with global price swings, while scrap steel and rubber imports track the steady, ongoing needs of the country's manufacturing base. Barring a major shift in regional tax policy or a shock to the steel and tire industries anchored there, Luxembourg's import total looks likely to keep moving in small increments rather than the sharp swings seen in fuel-exporting economies. Even the fuel and vehicle categories, unusual as their scale looks for a country this small, respond mainly to tax policy decisions rather than the kind of global commodity shocks that drive much larger swings in more resource-dependent economies.