The Cayman Islands’ economic relationship with the United Kingdom continued to be dominated by services and investment flows in 2025, according to a new UK Department for Business and Trade factsheet.
The report recorded £6.3 billion in total UK-Cayman trade in the four quarters ending Q4 2025, up 13.6% from the previous year.
However, the figures should be read with caution. The vast majority of the reported activity was in services, while actual goods trade between the two jurisdictions remained very small.
UK exports to Cayman totalled £6.1 billion, of which £6 billion, or 99.2%, was services. Goods exports were just £49 million.
Similarly, while UK imports from Cayman were £212 million, services accounting for £210 million and goods imports only £2 million.
The report does not provide a breakdown of the types of services included in the Cayman figures, but most of the reported services flow likely related to transactions involving Cayman-domiciled entities, investment structures or other financial services vehicles.
The distinction is important because Cayman’s role as a major international financial centre means that trade and investment statistics can reflect where companies, funds or structures are domiciled.
Cayman ranked as the UK’s 41st largest overall trading partner during the period, but the detail shows a sharp contrast between goods and services. Cayman was only the UK’s 137th largest goods trading partner, but its 28th largest services trading partner.
The largest UK goods exports to Cayman were medicinal and pharmaceutical products, ships and cars. Cayman’s goods exports to the UK were far smaller, led by coffee, tea and cocoa products and unspecified goods.
The figures suggest that the UK-Cayman relationship is best understood less as conventional trade in physical goods and more as a services and investment relationship shaped by Cayman’s role in global finance.
