ITC Trade Map
The world's reference database for trade statistics: values, volumes, growth and market shares for 220+ countries and every HS product code.
Overview
ITC Trade Map is the closest thing world trade has to a single reference desk. When you need to answer who imports or exports a product, from whom, and how that has changed over time, this is where most analysts start. It turns the raw statistics that governments report into readable tables, charts and rankings that a business user can act on without a statistics background.
Behind the interface sit indicators that matter for market research: trade values and quantities, unit values, year-on-year and multi-year growth rates, market shares and country rankings, with time series that reach back roughly two decades. A 2026 revamp refreshed the interface and added functionality around rules-of-origin analysis, so the tool now does more than report flows: it helps you see the conditions attached to them.
The important mental model is that Trade Map tells you what happened. It is a mirror of reported trade, not a recommendation engine. That makes it the perfect first stop for building a longlist of candidate markets, and the reason a second layer of judgement is always needed before you commit to one.
New to the terminology? Every technical term is explained in our trade glossary, including HS code and rules of origin.
What data you'll find
Bilateral trade flows
Import and export values by product and by partner country, so you can see not just how large a market is but exactly which suppliers already serve it.
Time series and growth
Yearly, quarterly and monthly series with growth rates, so a large but shrinking market can be told apart from a smaller one growing at double digits.
Unit values
Average value per quantity unit, a practical proxy for price positioning that hints at whether a market buys premium or budget goods in your category.
Market shares and rankings
Each country's share of world imports or exports for a product, and its rank, so you can benchmark competitiveness at a glance.
Company directories
Lists of importing or exporting companies for some markets. Coverage varies and these are directory entries rather than shipment records.
How to find your biggest and fastest-growing import markets in Trade Map
Goal: Find the biggest import markets for your product and how fast each is growing.
- 01
Create your free account and sign in
Registration takes a minute and unlocks the full range of tables and export options. Everything below assumes you are logged in.
- 02
Search your product by name or HS code
Start at the 6-digit HS level. HS6 is the internationally comparable layer, so figures line up across countries. If you are unsure of your code, look it up first (our glossary explains the HS structure).
- 03
Open the list of importing markets
Select Imports, then view the list of importing markets for the product. You now have every country ranked by how much of your product it buys.
- 04
Read size and growth together
Sort by imported value, then look across to the 5-year growth column. A large market that is shrinking is a very different prospect from a mid-size market growing 10% a year. Neither number means much alone.
- 05
Inspect a market's supplier mix
Open a specific market to see which partner countries already supply it and at what unit values. This tells you who you would compete against and roughly at what price point.
- 06
Export your shortlist
Send the table to Excel so you can keep your candidate markets, growth figures and incumbent suppliers in one place for the next stage of analysis.
Strengths
- Unmatched breadth and authority: the single best first stop for trade statistics.
- Long time series let you separate structural trends from one-off spikes.
- Free for everyone since 2021, with a friendly analysis layer over raw data.
- HS6 comparability makes cross-country comparisons genuinely like-for-like.
Limitations
- Mirror data: when a country does not report, its figures are estimated from partners' reports, and the two sides rarely match exactly.
- Recent years can be incomplete for some reporters, so the latest data point is not always the most reliable.
- It shows what happened, not what it means. There is no weighting of tariffs, distance, risk or fit.
- Company lists are directory-style entries, not shipment records, so treat them as leads to verify.
Frequently asked questions
Trade Map shows you every market. It won't tell you which one is yours.
After an hour in Trade Map you will have a spreadsheet of twenty candidate markets, and the real work still ahead: weighing size against growth, tariffs against distance, stability against competition.
JTH Market Selection runs that weighing for you. Pick your product and origin, set how much each factor matters to your company, and get a ranked shortlist built on the same class of official trade data, in minutes instead of days.
Related guides
Market Access Map (MacMap)
Look up the tariff any country charges on your product: MFN and preferential rates, quotas, trade remedies and regulatory requirements.
Export Potential Map
ITC's model of untapped export potential: how much more of your product each market could realistically absorb.
Global Trade Helpdesk
The one-stop shop from ITC, UNCTAD and the WTO: market stats, tariffs and procedures for one product-market pair on a single page.
JTrade Help is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the International Trade Centre. Tool names belong to their owners. Guides are based on public documentation and hands-on use; always check the official site for current features.