Risk and sentiment
Korea Trade Balance
Korea's customs-basis trade balance, exports minus imports, in billions of dollars. Shaped heavily by semiconductor exports and energy import prices, swings between surplus and deficit set the backdrop for the won and foreign investor flows.
Latest
34.79 bn USD
+4.13 bn USD
Korea Trade Balance latest observations
- Observed
- 2026-08-31
- Latest
- 34.79 bn USD
- Change from previous
- ▲ +4.13 bn USD
Check the observation dates in both the summary and chart; release and refresh times can differ.
At a glance
Korea Trade Balance: latest value and prior change
As of 2026-08-31, Korea Trade Balance is 34.79 bn USD. It is 4.13 bn USD higher than 30.65 bn USD on 2026-07-31.
Across 320 available observations from 2000-01-31 to 2026-08-31, the latest value is at the tie-adjusted 100th percentile.
- Observed on
- Default comparison window
- 2000-01-31–2026-08-31
- Observations · observed cadence
- 320 · Monthly
- Data source
- Bank of Korea ECOS
A high or low percentile does not by itself make the indicator positive, negative, or a buy or sell signal.
2021-09-30 → 2026-08-31 · bn USD
- First
- 4.28 bn USD
- 2021-09-30
- Latest
- 34.79 bn USD
- 2026-08-31
- Window low
- -12.70 bn USD
- 2023-01-31
- Window high
- 35.91 bn USD
- 2026-06-30
The horizontal axis follows observation order; calendar intervals may differ. High and low refer to observed values within this window, not intraday or all-time extremes. Ties show the first observation date.
Time-series chart
Korea Trade Balance
2000-01-31–2026-08-31
Long-history series are stored as real provider observations. Index, FX, VIX, and ratio charts use historical backfill where providers expose it; Korean investor flow and margin-credit feeds expand as stable historical endpoints become available.
Recent observations and calculated changes
The ten latest chart observations. Change subtracts the previous observation; intervals vary with holidays, release schedules and missing data. A difference in rates or ratios is not an investment return.
| Observed | Value | Previous date | Difference (current − previous) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-08-31 | 34.79 bn USD | 2026-07-31 | 4.13 bn USD |
| 2026-07-31 | 30.65 bn USD | 2026-06-30 | -5.26 bn USD |
| 2026-06-30 | 35.91 bn USD | 2026-05-31 | 9.11 bn USD |
| 2026-05-31 | 26.80 bn USD | 2026-04-30 | 3.16 bn USD |
| 2026-04-30 | 23.64 bn USD | 2026-03-31 | -2.97 bn USD |
| 2026-03-31 | 26.61 bn USD | 2026-02-28 | 11.07 bn USD |
| 2026-02-28 | 15.54 bn USD | 2026-01-31 | 6.85 bn USD |
| 2026-01-31 | 8.69 bn USD | 2025-12-31 | -3.46 bn USD |
| 2025-12-31 | 12.15 bn USD | 2025-11-30 | 2.68 bn USD |
| 2025-11-30 | 9.47 bn USD | 2025-10-31 | 3.47 bn USD |
Source: Bank of Korea ECOS
Interpretation guide
The trade balance: page one of the won's supply and demand
Korea's trade balance subtracts customs-cleared imports from exports, published at the start of each month as one of the fastest reads on whether the country earned or spent dollars in goods trade. With semiconductors steering exports and energy steering imports, two global prices can swing the balance on their own — and a sign change between surplus and deficit resets the backdrop for the won and foreign flows.
The two prices that move the balance
Korea's trade balance is effectively a tug-of-war between chip prices and energy prices. Rising memory prices inflate export value while oil and gas spikes inflate the import bill, so when the balance lurches, check those two prices before reaching for a domestic-economy explanation.
- Verify whether an improving balance came from chips using TapeFlow's semiconductor exports YoY.
- Winter months seasonally lift heating-related energy imports and weaken the balance — allow for the pattern.
- Deficits during oil spikes are a terms-of-trade problem, not a demand problem, so separate the causes.
Why sign changes carry weight
The balance tends to hold the same sign for months at a stretch, which makes the rare moments it flips genuinely informative. A turn from deficit to surplus means dollars are starting to flow back toward the won, and such turns have often marked the start of shifts in the exchange rate and foreign positioning.
- A deficit that peaks and starts narrowing is already worth checking as an early turn signal.
- Prolonged deficits risk a feedback loop where won weakness and foreign selling reinforce each other.
- When the sign disagrees with the current account, which adds services and income, ask which is the underlying trend.
Why the growth rates must come along
The balance is just a difference, so surpluses built by different routes mean opposite things. Distinguishing a surplus earned by rising exports from one produced by collapsing imports is the core task of reading this series.
- Set Korea Exports YoY and Imports YoY side by side to decompose the surplus's source.
- A surplus created by exports and imports both shrinking is recession-type — do not read it as good news.
- As a value-based statistic it mixes price and volume effects, so track the chip price cycle alongside.