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CountryAtlas
Trade · Investment

Foreign direct investment, net outflows (% of GDP)

% of GDP · Annual · 197 of 218 countries (90 %) · 1970–2025
World average (population-weighted)
0.9 %
across 91 countries, 2025
Latest observation
2025
Source updated
13 Jul 2026
CountryAtlas refreshed
11 Sep 2026
Snapshot 20260911T072322Z

World map

One value per country for the selected year. Hatched = no data.

No data available

Trend

Aggregate across the countries of a group, year by year. Computed by CountryAtlas from country values — no published aggregate is used.

Not enough countries to aggregate this indicator for World.

Highest and lowest

The five leaders and the five trailing countries, 2025.

Highest 5

Lowest 5

Compare countries

Pick up to five countries. Defaults to the three largest economies with data.

No series for the selected countries.

Definition

Definition
Unit
% of GDP (% GDP)
Frequency
Annual
Aggregation
none · No direction
Valid range
-500500

Sources & provenance

Every value on this page comes from one of these series, chosen per country by priority.

  1. Priority #1
    World BankWDIBM.KLT.DINV.WD.GD.ZSpartial
    197 countries · 7,299 obs. · → 2025 · CC BY 4.0

    Foreign direct investment refers to direct investment equity flows in an economy. It is the sum of equity capital, reinvestment of earnings, and other capital. Direct investment is a category of cross-border investment associated with a resident in one economy having control or a significant degree of influence on the management of an enterprise that is resident in another economy. Ownership of 10 percent or more of the ordinary shares of voting stock is the criterion for determining the existence of a direct investment relationship. This series shows net outflows of investment from the reporting economy to the rest of the world, and is divided by GDP. Source: Balance of Payments database, International Monetary Fund (IMF), note: International Monetary Fund, Balance of Payments database, supplemented by data from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and official national sources.; UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD); Official national sources

    Open at source

Series-level selection: for each country the whole series comes from the highest-priority source that has any non-forecast value for it. If a lower-priority source is more than three years fresher, the freshest source wins instead. Non-chosen values are kept as alternatives, never discarded.

Countries without data

Typical reasons: the source does not survey small territories or micro-states; the statistical office reports with a lag of one to three years; the series is only compiled for member countries of the source organisation (OECD, EU, Eurostat); or a value exists but failed validation and is quarantined rather than shown.

Downloads & API

Every observation for this indicator, all countries and years, with provenance columns.

API example

One country, full history. Replace CAN by any ISO3 code or slug.

bash
curl -s "https://www.countryatlas.co/api/v1/series?country=CAN&indicator=fdi-outflows-pct-gdp" | jq '.series[0] | {country: .country.name, unit, last: .stats.last, source: .provenance.source_name}'

API documentation