Trade Exports vs. LRA Revenue
How export performance lines up with what the Liberia Revenue Authority collected — the trade base, the revenue it carried, and the tax heads most directly tied to it
Export Volume vs. LRA Collected Revenue
Annual exports (bars, left axis) against total LRA collections and the customs-duties share of them (lines, right axis)
- Exports
- LRA collections
- Customs duties
Revenue per unit of exports
US$728
LRA collections for every US$1,000 of exports in 2025
Collections alongside exports
US$818.0M
Recorded against US$1,123M of exports
Customs duties share
19.3%
Of total collections in 2026 — the tax head most directly tied to trade
Trade sector contribution
US$345.0M
Revenue generated by trade & investment activity in 2026, incl. US$50.1M in taxes
How closely the two move together
A strong positive relationship (r = 0.74) across the 8 years where both series overlap.
Exports and collected revenue are driven by different things as well — mineral prices, the exchange rate, the tax net, and how much of the trade base is actually taxed — so a close statistical fit is not evidence that one causes the other. The ratio below reads more reliably than the correlation, and it too is descriptive, not causal.
Trade and Revenue, Year by Year
Export and import figures in USD millions · collections in USD
| Year | Exports | Imports | Trade balance | LRA collections | Customs duties | Collections per US$1,000 exported |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | US$2,635M | US$2,193M | US$441M | US$1.02BYTD | US$196.6M | US$386 |
| 2025 | US$1,123M | US$1,913M | US$-775M | US$818.0M | US$189.0M | US$728 |
| 2024 | US$2,570M | US$23,000M | US$-20,430M | US$699.0M | US$180.0M | US$272 |
| 2023 | US$154M | US$2,163M | US$-2,010M | US$611.9M | US$165.0M | US$3981 |
| 2022 | US$820M | US$1,250M | US$-430M | US$614.9M | — | US$750 |
| 2021 | US$695M | US$1,080M | US$-385M | US$529.7M | — | US$762 |
| 2020 | US$568M | US$940M | US$-372M | US$435.7M | — | US$767 |
| 2019 | US$540M | US$970M | US$-430M | US$469.6M | — | US$870 |
| 2018 | US$495M | US$1,050M | US$-555M | — | — | — |
Trade figures: CBL / LISGIS · TrendEconomy · OEC and World Bank · Central Bank of Liberia / World Bank / WTO · Central Bank of Liberia.
Collection figures: LRA Annual Report FY2018/19 · LRA Annual Report FY2019/20 · LRA Annual Report FY2020/21 · LRA Annual Report CY2022 · LRA Annual Report FY2023 · LRA Annual Report FY2024 / LRA Press Release (December 2025) · LRA Press Release (December 29, 2025) · Government of Liberia / Liberia Revenue Authority — presidential address, 14 September 2026.
Import and export figures are drawn from different publishers across these years, and 2024's imports sit far above every other year in the series — read that column with care. The LRA collection figures do not carry a customs breakdown, so the customs series is taken from the government revenue records.