Countries by Transport services (% of commercial service imports)

Ranking 2024

Values shown in %.

Analysis

This metric measures transport services as a share of total commercial service imports. Transport is defined as the process of carriage of people and objects from one location to another as well as related supporting and auxiliary services; also included are postal and courier services. The indicator is expressed as a percentage of service imports, which are commercial services provided by non-residents to residents. The unit is percent, and higher values indicate that transport services make up a larger share of what a country imports commercially. Data covers 191 countries, with 96.3% of entries from the last seven years and 100% classified as official data. The dataset shows 13 extreme outliers at the 3-sigma threshold, and the range spans from 1.38% to 91.89%, a spread of 6,568%.

The top of the ranking is dominated by landlocked nations, small island states, and conflict-affected economies. Djibouti ranks 1st at 91.89%, followed by Afghanistan at 88.85% (rank 2) and Turks and Caicos Islands at 83.10% (rank 3). Sudan ranks 4th at 81.46% and Haiti ranks 5th at 76.15%. Kiribati (rank 6, 73.91%) and Tajikistan (rank 7, 70.00%) also appear near the top. These placements reflect the relatively narrow base of commercial service imports in such economies, where transport and logistics constitute the dominant category. Greece ranks 11th at 64.02%, an outlier among high-income nations, consistent with its large shipping sector recorded on the import side.

The middle of the ranking includes a broad mix of emerging and developed economies. Lithuania ranks 46th at 45.96%, Panama ranks 50th at 45.37%, and Singapore ranks 79th at 34.56%. Among larger economies, China ranks 109th at 27.63%, Germany ranks 149th at 20.20%, and the United States ranks 154th at 18.98%. At the lower end, Spain ranks 184th at 11.78%, the United Kingdom ranks 188th at 10.31%, and Macao SAR, China ranks 189th at 10.12%. Ireland ranks last at 1.38%, an extreme outlier separated by a wide margin from Andorra at rank 190 with 9.17%. This suggests that Ireland's commercial service import basket is heavily weighted toward non-transport categories.

Several data limitations apply to this metric. The indicator captures transport services only as a share of total commercial service imports, so a low ranking may reflect a large non-transport service import base rather than low absolute transport import volumes. Countries with significant financial, insurance, or digital services imports will mechanically score lower. Reporting methods for commercial services vary across national statistical offices, and some countries may classify borderline activities differently. The consistency check shows that only 78.5% of countries have data in the latest reference year, meaning some values are drawn from earlier periods. The 13 extreme outliers identified at the 3-sigma threshold suggest that a small number of country values may be influenced by structural economic features or reporting anomalies rather than typical transport dependence.

Methodology

Data is sourced from the World Bank World Development Indicators, indicator code TM.VAL.TRAN.ZS.WT, with a reference year of 2024. The metric is defined as follows: transport is the process of carriage of people and objects from one location to another as well as related supporting and auxiliary services; also included are postal and courier services; this indicator is expressed as a percentage of service imports which are commercial services provided by non-residents to residents. Coverage spans 191 countries, above the 80-country threshold for viability. Of these, 184 out of 191 (96.3%) have data from the last seven years, and 100% of datapoints are classified as official quality. The data shows 13 extreme outliers at the 3-sigma threshold. The year-over-year volatility averages 11.8%, well below the 50% concern threshold. Latest-year consistency stands at 78.5%, meaning roughly one in five country values may come from a prior year. The full range runs from 1.38% (Ireland) to 91.89% (Djibouti), a spread of 6,568%.

Sources

• World Bank