Nicaragua Import Data: $10.91B in 2023, Down 2.98%

Nicaragua Imports Every Barrel of Fuel It Burns

Nicaragua imported $10.91 billion worth of goods in 2023, down 2.98% from $11.25 billion in 2022. Mineral fuels led every category at 14.08% of the total, worth $1.54 billion, more than any other classification. Nicaragua relies heavily on fuel oil and diesel-fired power generation, and a $700 million LNG-to-power project under development at Puerto Sandino, including a 300-megawatt power plant, aims to reduce that dependence on petroleum-based generation. With no domestic production to fall back on, every liter of fuel Nicaragua consumes has to arrive from abroad. That makes this category unusually sensitive to swings in global energy prices, since Nicaragua has no domestic reserve capacity to buffer a sudden spike in world oil markets the way producing nations often can. A near-complete liquefied natural gas terminal represents the country's most concrete step so far toward diversifying its energy imports away from pure petroleum products. It still remains a fairly modest offset next to the total scale of fuel Nicaragua needs to bring in from abroad every single year.

Fabric Imports Feed the Same Garment Export Machine

Apparel, knitted or crocheted, supplied 6.32% of imports, worth $690 million, and fabrics of the same type added a further 3.15% ($344 million). Apparel is the largest sector operating in Nicaragua's free trade zones, employing more than 72,000 workers and accounting for 68.6% of zone employment, while automotive wire harness assembly ranks as the zones' second-largest sector. CAFTA-DR's yarn-forward rule of origin requires garment factories in the region to source qualifying yarn and fabric from the USA or elsewhere in the CAFTA-DR region in order to qualify for duty-free access to the American market. That requirement is why Nicaragua imports so much fabric and apparel material in the first place. Factories cut, sew and finish garments domestically before shipping them back out as the knitted apparel that topped Nicaragua's export list, covered in the companion export data for this country. That processing model means the fabric and apparel import figures here and the finished garment export figures there are really two stages of the same production chain rather than separate, unrelated flows of trade.

Electrical machinery supplied 7.83% of imports ($854 million), likely following a similar pattern tied to the wire harness assembly sector confirmed above, where imported components get assembled into finished automotive parts for re-export. Vehicles added 6.60% ($721 million), and machinery contributed 5.74% ($627 million), together reflecting general economic activity beyond the free trade zone sector alone. Pharmaceutical products supplied 4.59% ($501 million), a category Nicaragua's own industry cannot come close to supplying at scale. Plastics added 4.56% ($498 million), feeding both packaging and construction needs. Iron and steel contributed 3.00% ($327 million), and cereals closed out the top ten at 2.62% ($286 million), supplementing what Nicaragua's own farms produce for domestic consumption.

The USA, China and Central American Neighbors Supply Nearly Half of Everything

The USA supplied 24.77% of Nicaragua's imports in 2023, worth $2.70 billion, more than any other country. China followed at 12.65% ($1.38 billion), and Mexico added 9.35% ($1.02 billion). Honduras contributed 9.19% ($1.00 billion), and Guatemala supplied 7.81% ($852 million). Intra-regional trade among Central American economies has remained consistently strong, with Guatemala, El Salvador and Costa Rica among the region's most active intra-regional exporters. That kind of regional integration helps explain why Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica and El Salvador together supply more than a quarter of Nicaragua's imports, a level of neighborly trade uncommon outside tightly integrated regional blocs. Overlapping free trade arrangements, shared infrastructure and simple proximity all make it cheaper and faster to source everyday goods from a neighboring Central American economy than to ship them in from across an ocean. That logic applies especially to perishable food, packaged consumer goods and construction materials that lose value if shipping takes too long.

Costa Rica added 6.19% ($676 million), and El Salvador contributed 3.98% ($434 million). India supplied 3.40% ($371 million), and Ecuador added 2.42% ($265 million). Japan rounded out the top ten at 1.95% ($213 million). Together, the USA, China and Mexico made up 46.78% of total import value. Import totals swung sharply over the past five years, climbing from $6.99 billion in 2019 to $6.54 billion in 2020, then to $9.83 billion in 2021 and $11.25 billion in 2022, before easing back to $10.91 billion in 2023.