The underlying UK current account deficit shrank by £3.0bn between April and June 2026, falling to £11.3bn — equivalent to 1.4 per cent of GDP — according to the Office for National Statistics.
The £3.0bn narrowing, from £14.3bn in the first quarter, was largely driven by a £5.2bn reduction in the total trade deficit, the figures show. That improvement pulled the underlying deficit’s share of GDP down from 1.8 per cent in Quarter 1 to 1.4 per cent in Quarter 2.
But not all of the trade gain fed through to the final number. A £2.6bn widening of the primary income deficit — which captures flows such as investment returns between the UK and the rest of the world — partly offset the better trade position.
The broader headline deficit, which includes trade in precious metals, tells a different story. That figure narrowed by a smaller £1.2bn, settling at £19.9bn, or 2.5 per cent of GDP. The ONS excludes precious metals from its underlying measure precisely because their volatile flows can obscure the broader picture.
The UK recorded a net financial inflow of £29.7bn in the same quarter. A current account deficit means the value of payments sent to the rest of the world exceeded receipts during the period — so that inflow effectively financed the gap.
The data come from the ONS bulletin Balance of payments, UK: April to June 2026, published on 30 September 2026. As with all balance-of-payments releases, the figures may be revised in later publications.
Source: @ONS