Current Account Balance
Current Account Balance by country
Commentary
Notable countries
Kuwait has the strongest current account balance at 29.15% of GDP, followed by Marshall Islands at 21.49% and Singapore at 18%. At the other end, Dominica records the deepest deficit at -37.8% of GDP, with Timor-Leste (-31.49%) and Grenada (-21.56%) also standing out. A notable surprise is Djibouti, which ranks ninth globally at 14.69% despite Africa having a negative regional average.
Regional trends
South America has the strongest regional average at 1.042% of GDP, followed by Europe at 0.7507% and Asia at 0.1657%, meaning these regions are slightly in surplus on average. Oceania (-2.819%), Africa (-3.542%), and North America (-5.028%) average deficits, with North America showing the weakest regional position. Even so, every region includes outliers, with Oceania containing both Marshall Islands near the top and Kiribati among the bottom performers.
Data source
The data come from the World Bank 2024 and measure current account balance as a share of GDP (% of GDP). Coverage includes 191 countries. Values are country-level snapshots, and regional patterns are based on the provided continent averages.
Interpretation
Higher values indicate larger current account surpluses, while lower values indicate deeper deficits relative to the size of the economy. Strong surpluses can signal external strength, but very large imbalances in either direction may reflect concentrated economic structures or financing dependence. Overall, the global mean of -1.507% suggests that deficits are slightly more common than surpluses in this dataset.