In advance of launch of the Global Innovation Index (GII) 2026 on September 29th, we examine one of its indicators – the global trade in ideas, know-how and intellectual property (IP). Put simply, IP exports are what corporations in a given economy earns by licensing its patents, software, copyrighted works and/or designs abroad, while imports are what they pays to use IP from abraod. These figures matter because they highlight who leads international innovation and how tech moves around the world. Which countries are leading intellectual property (IP) exporters, and which are the largest importers? Explore the global flows here.
Cross-border payments for the use of IP are estimated to have reached USD 1.32 trillion in 2025 – a record high. In other words, businesses and creators are increasingly earning from ideas, technology, brands and creative works licensed for use abroad, rather than from physical goods alone. Knowledge can now cross borders instantly - without ships, warehouses, tariffs or other barriers. This is up from USD 728 billion in 2015, an increase of more than two-thirds in under a decade, or an average compound annual growth rate of approximately 6 percent between 2015 and 2024 (see Figure 1).
After a brief pandemic dip in 2020, IP trade crossed USD 1 trillion in 2021 and USD 1.2 trillion in 2024, when payments rose close to 11 percent, the fastest increase since the 2021 rebound.
Figure 1: Cross-border payments for the export and import of IP, in USD Billion, 2015- 2025
Source: WIPO GII database, based on Trade in Services by Mode of Supply (TISMOS), World Trade Organization (WTO)
Notes: 2025 values are GII estimates. For each economy, the 2024 IP receipts and payments are projected to 2025 by applying the corresponding country-level growth rate of total commercial services (exports for receipts, imports for payments) drawn from WTO preliminary estimates based on quarterly data (WTO Global Services Trade Data Hub, accessed July 2026). The world total for 2025 is then obtained by summing across all the economies.
IP trade and global value chains
Trade in IP takes place when a firm or creator in one country allows a user in another to draw on its protected knowledge, technology, brands or creative works for a payment, typically a royalty or licensing fee (see Box 1). A large share flows within multinational enterprises, between parents and their foreign affiliates.
These payments have expanded as economies have become more interconnected and production has been restructured across borders.[1] In global value chains, production is dispersed across economies and bound together by intangible capital.[2] Royalty and licensing payments are the visible part of a much larger flow of knowledge across borders, including to "factoryless" firms – companies that own IP but outsource manufacturing.
The base from which this trade flows keeps expanding. The newly released World Intangible Investment Highlights 2026 (WIIH 2026) shows that global investment in intangibles such as R&D, software, data, brands, and organizational capital exceeded USD 10 trillion in 2025 for the first time, having grown more than three times faster than tangible investment since 2008.[3]
However, not all IP-related transactions are captured in these figures (see Box 2 in the Annex to see what’s counted). The USD 1.32 trillion figure should therefore be read as a lower-bound estimate: a substantial amount of knowledge flows across borders through channels these statistics miss entirely, embedded in the price of traded goods, folded into subscription fees, or transferred within multinational corporations without generating a recorded payment. On top of this, transfer pricing practices mean the underlying data should always be read with some caution (see Background).
Global leaders in IP exports and imports
Table 1 ranks the leading IP exporters and importers based on official 2024 data; not our 2025 estimates. In net terms, the United States and Japan remain the largest net IP exporters, and Ireland and China the largest net IP importers. China, ranked 11th among IP exporters, is the only emerging economy in the top IP 20 exporters, while China (3rd), India (12th), Brazil (17th) and Thailand (20th) feature among the top 20 IP importers.
Strong IP importers are almost always strong exporters too: 9 of the top 10 exporters are also top 10 importers in 2024, with only France (9th in exports, 13th in imports) narrowly missing out. Middle-income economies like China and India (24th in exports, 12th in imports) show how emerging innovation economies engage actively in IP markets as they build technological and absorptive capacity.
Table 1: Global IP Receipts and Payments, Balance, in USD Billion, 2024
Source: Authors based on Trade in Services by Mode of Supply (TISMOS), World Trade Organization (WTO)
Box 1: The components of IP trade, and what they deliver[4]
Statisticians record payments for the trade in IP as "charges for the use of intellectual property", covering both the use of proprietary rights arising from R&D or from marketing, and licenses to reproduce or distribute works embodied in produced originals.[5]
- Licenses for the use of outcomes of R&D: Payments to a foreign firm for patented pharmaceutical formulations or for patents on mobile communication standards. These let domestic producers bring innovative medicines and products to market.
- Know-how, industrial processes and designs, including trade secrets: Payments for a proprietary production process, a secret formula or a protected industrial design used locally. These support local industry in offering higher-quality products.
- Franchise and trademark licensing fees: Payments to an international fast-food chain for the right to operate under its brand. These allow local businesses to benefit from a recognized brand and quality assurance, helping them create employment.
- Licenses to reproduce or distribute computer software: Payments for the right to pre-install or distribute an operating system or an enterprise resource planning system. These strengthen local firms' productivity through state-of-the-art digital tools.
- Licenses to reproduce or distribute audiovisual products and publications: Payments to international studios for the rights to distribute films, or educational content locally. These broaden the cultural and educational offerings available.
- Music and related rights: Payments to foreign rights holders for the use of sound recordings, or for the rights to broadcast a live performance, sustaining local broadcasters' programming and the creators behind it.
A common thread: the transaction is priced and recorded, but nothing tangible moves.
Relative IP trade intensity analysis
When examining IP trade as a share of total trade, European economies feature prominently. Cyprus leads in IP export intensity, followed by Japan (2nd) and Switzerland (3rd), with the Netherlands (4th), the United States (5th), Finland (6th), the United Kingdom (7th), Sweden (8th), Denmark (9th) and Ireland (10th). On the import side, Ireland leads with IP payments equivalent to close to a quarter of its total trade, reflecting the presence of multinational information technology companies and related intra-company transfer pricing, followed by Luxembourg (2nd), Switzerland (3rd) and Sweden (4th).
Among emerging economies, Costa Rica ranks highest in IP import intensity (7th), followed by Colombia (9th), Brazil (11th), Ghana (12th), Argentina (14th), Guatemala (17th), and Serbia and India (both 18th).
Table 2: IP Trade Intensity - IP Exports and Imports as percentage of Total Trade, 2024
Source: Authors based on Trade in Services by Mode of Supply (TISMOS), World Trade Organization (WTO)
For middle- and low-income economies, licensing-in is a key channel of technology transfer, complementing capital goods imports and foreign direct investment. IP payments abroad can thus be framed as an investment in upgrading domestic capabilities, by accessing better technologies, brands and creative content, rather than as a passive outflow.
IP trade also has a distinctive property: it is "weightless". Unlike goods, licensed knowledge crosses borders without ships, warehouses, customs procedures or tariffs. Unlike many other services, it requires neither the movement of people nor a commercial presence abroad: a license negotiated remotely can serve a factory, broadcaster or hospital on the other side of the world the same day, at near-zero cost (see Box 2 in the Annex).
Regional leadership in IP exports
Figure 2a below showcases the leading economies by total IP exports across Europe, Northern America, Southeast Asia, East Asia, and Oceania. The Netherlands and Germany lead the ranking in Europe, while in East Asia, Japan, Singapore, and China are the top performers in terms of IP exports. Taken together, IP exports remain the ambit of a few advanced economies within each region, even as a growing number of countries begin to earn from their own ideas.
Figure 2a: Global leaders in IP exports by Europe, Northern America, and Southeast Asia, East Asia and Oceania in 2024, in USD Billion
Source: Authors based on Trade in Services by Mode of Supply (TISMOS), World Trade Organization (WTO)
In Central and Southern Asia, the leader is India. In Latin America and the Caribbean, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina are the top IP exporters. In Northern Africa and Western Asia, the leading economies for IP exports include the United Arab Emirates, Cyprus, and Israel. Finally, in Sub-Saharan Africa, the leading country for IP exports are South Africa, followed by the Republic of Tanzania and Djibouti.
Figure 2a: Global leaders in IP exports by Central and Southern Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Northern Africa and Western Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa in 2024, in USD Million
Source: Authors based on Trade in Services by Mode of Supply (TISMOS), World Trade Organization (WTO)
Looking ahead: five business models that run on IP trade
The components in Box 1 are the statistical classics. The frontier is moving, however: a growing number of companies now organize their international business around licensing rather than exporting goods or building plants abroad. Five models illustrate the point.
- License the technology, not the factory. The world's electric battery makers, for example, increasingly license patents and collect service fees from automaker-owned plants, moving revenue across borders as IP payments rather than physical goods.
- Chipless and fabless semiconductors. Leading architecture licensors design chip blueprints but manufacture nothing, earning a royalty on every chip built to their designs, while "fabless" firms design IP-protected chips and pay foundries abroad to produce them.
- Biotech out-licensing. Rather than building global manufacturing and sales networks, biotechnology firms license their molecules and platform technologies, to partners abroad for upfront fees, milestone payments and royalties. Discovery happens in one economy, development and commercialization in others.
- Global content engines. Streaming platforms and media groups license series, films, games, and music globally, receiving revenues as copyright royalties.
- AI as the newest frontier of IP trade. Artificial intelligence (AI) generates IP trade in both directions. Upstream, a new licensing market has emerged in which publishers, image libraries and online platforms license content and data to AI developers for model training and retrieval. Downstream, access to AI models and their outputs is itself licensed across borders, and AI systems are beginning to generate designs, molecules and code that will in turn be exchanged too. Depending on their structure, such transactions will be recorded partly as IP charges and partly as computer or other services (see Box 2 in the Annex and WIIH2026).
Looking further ahead, autonomous AI agents could clear licensing rights in real time, converting traditional agreements into continuous micropayments whenever a design is printed, a molecule is synthesized, or a model is queried. As trade shifts from shipping physical products to transferring verified blueprints, local factories and robots can license capabilities just like phone apps, blurring the boundaries between goods, services, and IP trade.
Looking further ahead, a different trading system comes into view – a new form of digitally integrated immaterial trade reality. With AI and digital networks, in the future, licensing may no longer be negotiated deal by deal: autonomous AI agents could search, price and clear rights in real time, turning royalties into continuous micro-payments each time a design is printed, a molecule is synthesized or a model is queried. Factories might acquire production capabilities the way phones acquire apps, with a robot in one country licensing a certified skill developed in another. A meaningful share of goods trade could migrate into design files: firms would ship the verified blueprint and the right to produce locally, and customs duties on IP exchanges would give way to royalties on bits. And this could also apply to medicine, materials and food. In such a world, the boundaries between goods, services and IP trade would blur, and IP payments could rank among the largest items in the balance of payments. This shift will position IP payments at the center of global balance of payments accounting, requiring constant updates to measurement tools.
Background
The Global Innovation Index includes a pillar on Knowledge and Technology Outputs, with three sub pillars: knowledge creation (6.1), knowledge impact (6.2), and knowledge diffusion (6.3). Sub pillar 6.3 includes indicator 6.3.1, IP Receipts, % Total Trade, which measures charges for the use of IP (i.e. receipts) as a percentage of total trade, averaged over the three most recent years. Data for the GII draws on the WTO Global Services Trade Data Hub (TISMOS dataset). Country details can be gleaned from the GII Innovation Ecosystems & Data Explorer.
Box 2: How statisticians record IP payments, and what headline figures leave out
The figures in this blog follow the IMF Balance of Payments Manual (BPM). Its sixth edition still underpins the data reported here; the seventh, released in March 2025, is due for implementation in 2029-2030. Both sort IP transactions by what is actually being bought:
- Paying to use someone else's protected rights, for example licensing a patent or franchising a brand, or paying for the right to reproduce and distribute works, is counted as "charges for the use of IP". These are the flows reported in this blog.
- Buying a copy for one's use, such as an off-the-shelf software package, or a streamed film, is counted as computer or audiovisual services instead.
- Buying the IP outright, for example acquiring a patent or the results of R&D, is recorded as trade in R&D services.
- Selling a trademark outright is different again: brands are treated as non-produced "marketing assets" and not recorded as IP trade, but in capital accounts (see Trend 7 in WIPO WIIH 2026).
BPM7 keeps the category unchanged but adds finer breakdowns, distinguishing licenses that resemble asset purchases from ordinary licensing fees and identifying flows channeled through special purpose entities. In parallel, the Handbook on Measuring Digital Trade counts IP charges among the services deliverable remotely; since licensing is typically contracted and delivered online, IP payments form part of digital trade.[6]
These IP trade data require caution. Cross border payments are distorted by multinational tax planning. Because IP is intangible, hard to value, and easy to relocate, firms price affiliate transactions and locate legal ownership to shift profits toward low tax jurisdictions. A 2022 study estimated that tax induced mismeasurement could exceed 35 percent of global IP charges, alongside valuation challenges and bundled services.[7] Has the distortion decreased? Since 2015, G20/OECD BEPS actions and patent box requirements have aimed to align reported profits with real activity. Looking ahead, the 15 percent global minimum tax enacted in 2024 is expected to cut shifted profits by half.[8]
Footnotes
[1] See Chapter 1, The changing face of innovation and intellectual property, in WIPO (2011), World IP Report, Geneva: WIPO; and Taubman, Antony, and Jayashree Watal, editors. Trade in Knowledge: Intellectual Property, Trade and Development in a Transformed Global Economy. Cambridge University Press, 2022.
[2] WIPO (2017), World Intellectual Property Report 2017: Intangible Capital in Global Value Chains. Geneva: WIPO.
[3] WIPO and Luiss Business School (2026), World Intangible Investment Highlights 2026, July 2026 edition. Geneva: WIPO.
[4] On the components of IP trade and their treatment, see IMF (2014), BPM6 Compilation Guide: Companion Document to the Sixth Edition of the Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual. Washington, D.C.: International Monetary Fund and IMF (2023), Treatment of IP Products in Balance of Payments: Discussion Note. BOPCOM-23/03. October 24-26, 2023. Washington, D.C.: International Monetary Fund.
[5] The definition follows paragraph 10.137 of IMF (2009), Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual, sixth edition (BPM6). Washington, D.C.: International Monetary Fund.
[6] For the statistical treatment of intellectual property products in balance of payments statistics, see IMF (2009), BPM6, Table 10.4; IMF (2025), Integrated Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual, seventh edition (BPM7), March 2025. Washington, D.C.: IMF; IMF Committee on Balance of Payments Statistics, Issue Note: Treatment of IP Products in Balance of Payments Statistics; and IMF Statistics Department (2023), Treatment of IP Products in Balance of Payments Statistics, paper SNA/M3.23/11B for the 24th Meeting of the Advisory Expert Group on National Accounts. On digitally delivered trade, see IMF, OECD, UNCTAD and WTO (2023), Handbook on Measuring Digital Trade, Second Edition.
[7] As noted in earlier WIPO studies, but also a WTO publication on the trade of ideas, capturing international payments related to the trade of ideas, relative to standard services and certainly goods, is challenging. See Neubig, T., & Wunsch-Vincent, S. (2022). A Missing Link in the Analysis of Global Value Chains: Cross-Border Flows of Intangible Assets, Taxation and Related Measurement Implications. In A. Taubman & J. Watal (Eds.), Trade in Knowledge: IP, Trade and Development in a Transformed Global Economy. Cambridge University Press.
[8] See Hugger, F. et al. (2024), The Global Minimum Tax and the Taxation of MNE Profit, OECD Taxation Working Papers, No. 68, OECD Publishing, Paris.