India's goods exports rise 23% in September; trade deficit is $30.21 billion

India's merchandise exports rose 23.04% year-on-year to $44.4 billion in September 2026, and the trade deficit stood at $30.21 billion, government data released on Thursday, October 15, show.

The September numbers

According to ThePrint, reporting for PTI, exports rose from $36.08 billion in September 2025. Imports rose 8% year-on-year to $74.61 billion. The deficit of $30.21 billion compares with $33 billion in September 2025, but it is wider than August 2026, when it was $26.86 billion. Headlines frame this differently: the deficit is smaller than a year earlier and larger than in August.

The Hindu BusinessLine reports that engineering goods, chemicals, petroleum products and electronics led export growth. PTI gives the growth rates for petroleum products at 31.9% ($6.2 billion), electronic goods at 70.44% ($5.3 billion) and chemicals at 24.21% ($3 billion).

Imports

Gold imports fell 81.27% to $1.8 billion and silver imports fell 49.11% to $665 million, while crude oil imports rose 30.76% to $18.34 billion, PTI reports. The Indian Express reports that gold imports were $9.6 billion in September 2025, and that Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agarwal said the fall could be a result of high import duty on gold. It also reports imports from China up 31.5% to $14.86 billion.

Destinations, services and the half-year

The Indian Express reports that goods exports to the United States rose 48% to more than $8 billion, and that shipments to the UAE fell 12%. The Hindu BusinessLine lists the US, China, Singapore, South Africa and Malaysia among the destinations driving growth, and the UAE, the Netherlands, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka among those that declined.

For services, government estimates put exports at $36.35 billion in September and imports at $19.44 billion, according to PTI. The Indian Express reports services exports were $36.67 billion a year earlier, a small decline that it calls rare. Agarwal said the rise in oil prices linked to the West Asia crisis has affected areas including travel and tourism, PTI reports.

For the first half of 2026-27, PTI and The Hindu BusinessLine report that exports rose 18.51% to $259.89 billion and imports rose 16.31% to $437.53 billion, so the deficit widened to $177.64 billion from $156.88 billion in April-September 2025-26. The Indian Express reports that imports from China in April-September were $80.35 billion, up 27% from $62.86 billion a year earlier.

What officials and others said

Agarwal said exports are maintaining their growth trend, and that export growth in the second quarter was higher than in the first. He said he hoped that, if the trend continued, merchandise exports would cross $500 billion; they were $442 billion in 2025-26, PTI reports. Federation of Indian Export Organisations president SC Ralhan said the first-half performance gives a foundation for India's $1 trillion export ambition. ICRA chief economist Aditi Nayar said, as reported by The Indian Express, that goods exports grew more than 20% for a second month while import growth cooled to a six-month low of 8%.