Tracking where Canada sends its merchandise exports — and how that concentration has shifted over time.
This page examines which countries receive Canadian goods and how that distribution has changed. It covers merchandise exports only; services trade is tracked separately.
Export diversification measures how broadly a country's sales are spread across trading partners. Canada has historically been highly concentrated — the vast majority of merchandise exports flow to the United States, a pattern shaped by geography, supply chains, and successive trade agreements.
Export diversification index · 0–100 scale · Source: Statistics Canada, Table 12-10-0011-01
Hover to explore. Statistics Canada, Table 12-10-0011-01. Inverted Herfindahl–Hirschman Index, normalized 0–100.
This page covers merchandise exports from Canada to all trading partners as reported in Statistics Canada Table 12-10-0011-01 (Canadian international merchandise trade). Services exports are not included. Data begin in 1997, reflecting the start of the Statistics Canada quarterly series.
The diversification score is computed from the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI), a standard measure of market concentration. The HHI is the sum of squared export shares across all trading partners. This value is then inverted (1 − HHI) to produce a diversification measure, and normalized to a 0–100 scale. A score of 0 indicates all exports flow to a single destination; a score of 100 indicates exports are perfectly evenly distributed.
For the Sankey diagram and snapshot panel, individual EU member states are aggregated into a single "European Union" entry. The United States, China, Mexico, Japan, United Kingdom, and South Korea are shown individually. All other partners — including the D1 "Other" residual category — are grouped as "Rest of World". Any partner with a share below 0.1% is excluded from display.
Statistics Canada regularly revises merchandise trade data for up to three prior years as more complete information becomes available. This site re-runs the full pipeline on each daily refresh, so revisions are automatically incorporated. Historical values shown in the chart may change slightly over time as the underlying source data is revised.
Merchandise exports by destination · Q3 2025 · CAD millions
Width proportional to export share. "Rest of World" includes all other countries combined. Hover flows for country, share, and CAD value.
Source: Statistics Canada, Table 12-10-0011-01
The latest available data shows that a large majority of Canada's total merchandise exports — historically above 70 per cent — are directed to the United States. This long-standing concentration reflects deep continental supply chain integration, geographic proximity, and preferential access established under successive free trade agreements since 1988. The exact current share is shown in the snapshot above.
Modestly. The US share of Canadian merchandise exports peaked above 84 per cent in the early 2000s and has declined over the following two decades, driven partly by commodity export growth to Asian markets and partly by diversification agreements such as CETA and CPTPP. Progress has been gradual, and Canada's structural export concentration remains high by international standards. The current trend is visible in the line chart above.
CUSMA, which replaced NAFTA in July 2020, largely preserved Canada's preferential access to the US and Mexican markets. Its direct effect on diversification was limited — the agreement updated rules of origin for automotive products and added digital trade provisions, but did not redirect significant export flows toward new markets. CUSMA is best understood as a stabilization of existing continental trade rather than a diversification instrument.
The Canada–EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement entered provisional application in September 2017. Analysis from Statistics Canada and the Bank of Canada suggests a moderate increase in bilateral trade volumes, particularly in goods subject to tariff elimination. The EU's share of Canadian exports has remained in a broadly similar range after CETA's implementation, though absolute volumes have increased alongside overall global trade growth.
China's share of Canadian merchandise exports has grown from under 2 per cent in the early 2000s to a larger share today, driven primarily by commodity exports — canola, potash, coal, and softwood products. Political and trade tensions, particularly following the 2018 Meng Wanzhou detention, disrupted agricultural exports temporarily. China remains Canada's second-largest individual export destination but is well behind the United States.
The latest available data places the United States as by far Canada's largest export destination, accounting for the majority of merchandise exports. The European Union (as a bloc), China, Mexico, Japan, and the United Kingdom are the next-largest destinations, collectively receiving most of the remaining share. The exact rankings and shares for the most recent quarter are shown in the Sankey diagram and snapshot above.
No. This page and the diversification index cover merchandise exports only — physical goods exported from Canada. Services trade (financial, transportation, professional, and other services) is tracked separately by Statistics Canada under the International Trade in Services data program and is not included in this index.
No. The data on this page covers exports only — goods leaving Canada to other countries. Import data is tracked separately by Statistics Canada. The diversification metric specifically measures how broadly Canada distributes its export sales, which is distinct from its import sourcing patterns.
Export diversification measures how broadly a country distributes its merchandise export sales across multiple trading partners. The index used here is based on the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI) — a standard measure of market concentration. The HHI sums the squares of each partner's export share. This value is inverted (1 − HHI) and normalized to a 0–100 scale, where 0 represents complete concentration in a single partner and 100 represents exports perfectly distributed across all trading partners.
The underlying Statistics Canada data (Table 12-10-0011-01) is updated on a monthly release schedule, with quarterly data becoming available approximately two months after the reference quarter ends. This site refreshes daily at 17:00 UTC and incorporates the latest available release automatically. The last refresh date and index period are shown in the footer.