Massachusetts

Massachusetts Exports and Foreign Investment

In 2024, Massachusetts exported $34.9 billion of goods to the world. In 2022, exports from Massachusetts supported an estimated 103 thousand jobs (latest data available).

Exports from Massachusetts and Jobs

• Massachusetts was the 18th largest state exporter of goods in 2024.
• In 2024, Massachusetts goods exports were $34.9 billion, an increase of 27 percent ($7.5 billion) from its export level in 2014.
• Goods exports accounted for 4.8 percent of Massachusetts GDP in 2023 (latest data available).
• Massachusetts goods exports in 2022 supported an estimated 103 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 Massachusetts and Jobs

• In 2024, Massachusetts exported $33.5 billion of manufactured products.
• Massachusetts exports of manufactured products supported an estimated 99 thousand jobs in 2022 (latest data available).
• The state's largest manufacturing export category is chemicals, which accounted for $7.0 billion of Massachusetts's total goods exports in 2024.
• Other top manufacturing exports are computer & electronic products ($6.2 billion), machinery, except electrical ($6.0 billion), primary metal manufacturing ($4.3 billion), and miscellaneous manufactured commodities ($3.1 billion).

Exports Sustain Thousands of Massachusetts Businesses many of which are SMEs

• A total of 9,781 companies exported from Massachusetts locations in 2022 (latest data available). Of those, 8,595 (88 percent) were small and medium sized enterprises with fewer than 500 employees.
• Small and medium-sized firms generated 28.4 percent of Massachusetts's total exports of goods in 2022.

Massachusetts Depends on World Markets

• The state’s largest market was China. Massachusetts exported $3.9 billion in goods to China in 2024, representing 11 percent of the state’s total goods exports.
• China was followed by Mexico ($3.5 billion), Canada ($3.0 billion), the United Kingdom ($3.0 billion), and Netherlands ($2.2 billion).
• Massachusetts’s exports to major world areas included:

 

• 32 percent of Massachusetts’s goods exports ($11.1 billion) in 2024 went to current FTA partners.  

Agriculture in Massachusetts depends on Exports

Massachusetts is the country’s 45th largest agricultural exporting state, shipping $226 million 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
other plant products	$150 million	31
other livestock products	$29 million	40
fruits, processed	$16 million	15
fruits, fresh	$16 million	15
dairy products	$8 million	39

International Investment Creates Jobs in Massachusetts

• In 2022 (latest data available), foreign-controlled companies employed 236,600 Massachusetts workers. Major sources of foreign investment in Massachusetts included the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and France.
• Foreign investment in Massachusetts was responsible for 7.2 percent of the state's total private-industry employment in 2022.

Massachusetts’s Major Metropolitan Areas Benefit from Exporting
In 2023 (latest data available), the following metropolitan areas in Massachusetts recorded goods exports: Providence-Warwick ($6.5 billion), Amherst Town-Northampton ($159.5 million), Barnstable Town ($173.2 million), Boston-Cambridge-Newton ($34.5 billion), Pittsfield ($279.6 million), Springfield ($705.7 million), and Worcester ($2.5 billion).