Arkansas

Arkansas Exports & Foreign Investment

In 2024, Arkansas exported $6.9 billion of goods to the world. In 2022, exports from Arkansas supported an estimated 34 thousand jobs (latest data available).

Exports from Arkansas and Jobs

• Arkansas was the 38th largest state exporter of goods in 2024.
• In 2024, Arkansas goods exports were $6.9 billion, an increase of 0.4 percent ($27 million) from its export level in 2014.
• Goods exports accounted for 3.7 percent of Arkansas GDP in 2023 (latest data available).
• Arkansas goods exports in 2022 supported an estimated 34 thousand jobs (latest data available). Nationally, jobs supported by goods exports pay up to an estimated 18 percent above the national average.

Manufacturing Exports from Arkansas and Jobs

• In 2024, Arkansas exported $6.1 billion of manufactured products.
• Arkansas exports of manufactured products supported an estimated 20 thousand jobs in 2022 (latest data available).
• The state's largest manufacturing export category is transportation equipment, which accounted for $1.6 billion of Arkansas's total goods exports in 2024.
• Other top manufacturing exports are food & kindred products ($1.1 billion), chemicals ($681 million), machinery, except electrical ($596 million), and paper ($492 million).

Exports Sustain Thousands of Arkansas Businesses many of which are SMEs

• A total of 2,190 companies exported from Arkansas locations in 2022 (latest data available). Of those, 1,665 (76 percent) were small and medium sized enterprises with fewer than 500 employees.
• Small and medium-sized firms generated 22.9 percent of Arkansas's total exports of goods in 2022.

Arkansas Depends on World Markets

• The state’s largest market was Mexico. Arkansas exported $1.6 billion in goods to Mexico in 2024, representing 23 percent of the state’s total goods exports.
• Mexico was followed by Canada ($1.5 billion), France ($400 million), China ($227 million), and Brazil ($159 million).
• Arkansas’s exports to major world areas included:
   

 

• 56 percent of Arkansas’s goods exports ($3.9 billion) in 2024 went to current FTA partners.  

Agriculture in Arkansas depends on Exports

• Arkansas is the country’s 15th largest agricultural exporting state, shipping $4.3 billion in domestic agricultural exports abroad in 2022 (latest data available according to the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture).
• Top Agricultural exports were:

	2022 Value	2022 State Rank
soybeans	$1.3 billion	10
rice	$682 million	1
cotton	$628 million	3
broiler meat	$531 million	3
soybean meal	$228 million	10

International Investment Creates Jobs in Arkansas

• In 2022 (latest data available), foreign-controlled companies employed 58,500 Arkansas workers. Major sources of foreign investment in Arkansas included the United Kingdom, France and Japan.
• Foreign investment in Arkansas was responsible for 5.4 percent of the state's total private-industry employment in 2022.

Arkansas’s Major Metropolitan Areas Benefit from Exporting
In 2023 (latest data available), the following metropolitan areas in Arkansas recorded goods exports: Memphis ($17.9 billion), Texarkana ($321.2 million), Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers ($758.3 million), Fort Smith ($378.8 million), Hot Springs ($80.5 million), Jonesboro ($200.7 million), and Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway ($1.5 billion).