EU Countries Sell 61.1% of Their Goods Exports to Each Other

What the single market absorbs

When a Member State reports its exports, most of what it counts is sold to another Member State. Across the Union in 2025 that share was 61.1% of goods exports by value.

The single market is therefore not one destination among several for European producers. For most of them it is the destination, and the rest of the world is the smaller half of their business.

Where the dependence is deepest

Czechia sends 78.8% of its goods exports to other Member States, Slovakia 78.3%, Hungary 75.2% and Poland 74.8%. Luxembourg records the highest share of all at 83.1%.

The central European group is the clearest pattern in the ranking. These are economies built into the manufacturing supply chains of their western neighbours — a Slovak component becomes part of a German product — and the share reflects that integration rather than a preference for nearby markets.

Estonia at 74.9% and Portugal at 72.1% sit in the same band for different reasons, which is a reminder that the ranking has more than one cause.

The two economies that face outward

Cyprus records 27.6% and Ireland 33.5%. They are the only Member States below 40%, and the distance between Ireland and the next lowest is substantial: Slovenia, third from bottom, records 49.2%.

Ireland's position follows from what it exports. Its goods trade is dominated by pharmaceutical and medical products manufactured by firms whose principal market is the United States, so its export destinations look unlike those of an economy of similar size and location.

Only three Member States — Cyprus, Ireland and Slovenia — send less than half their goods exports inside the single market.

Germany, France and Italy sit near the middle

Germany records 55.9%, France 53.7% and Italy 51.3%.

All three sit close to the line where the internal and external markets are of equal size, and all three are below the EU figure of 61.1%.

Size is not what decides the share, though. The Netherlands records 69.1% and Belgium 69.0%, and by value they are the second and fifth largest goods exporters in the Union — both well above the EU figure, not below it. What separates them from Germany, France and Italy is the kind of trade they do: much of what leaves Rotterdam and Antwerp is destined for the European hinterland behind them.

What the ranking does separate is exposure. A Czech or Slovak manufacturer has four fifths of its export business inside the single market; a German one has slightly more than half. That is a difference in how a disruption to the single market would be felt, and it does not line up with how large the economy is.