Texas Exports and Foreign Investment
In 2024, Texas exported $455.0 billion of goods to the world. In 2022, exports from Texas supported an estimated 1.2 million jobs (latest data available).
Exports from Texas and Jobs
- Texas was the largest state exporter of goods in 2024.
- In 2024, Texas goods exports were $455.0 billion, an increase of 59 percent ($169 billion) from its export level in 2014.
- Goods exports accounted for 17.3 percent of Texas GDP in 2023 (latest data available).
- Texas goods exports in 2022 supported an estimated 1.2 million jobs (latest data available). Nationally, jobs supported by goods exports pay up to an estimated 18 percent above the national average.
Manufacturing Exports from Texas and Jobs
- In 2024, Texas exported $293.2 billion of manufactured products.
- Texas exports of manufactured products supported an estimated 933 thousand jobs in 2022 (latest data available).
- The state's largest manufacturing export category is petroleum & coal products, which accounted for $73.0 billion of Texas's total goods exports in 2024.
- Other top manufacturing exports are computer & electronic products ($57.1 billion), chemicals ($57.0 billion), transportation equipment ($28.2 billion), and machinery, except electrical ($25.2 billion).
Exports Sustain Thousands of Texas Businesses many of which are SMEs
- A total of 40,451 companies exported from Texas locations in 2022 (latest data available). Of those, 37,305 (92 percent) were small and medium sized enterprises with fewer than 500 employees.
- Small and medium-sized firms generated 43.9 percent of Texas's total exports of goods in 2022.
Texas Depends on World Markets
- The state’s largest market was Mexico. Texas exported $123.5 billion in goods to Mexico in 2024, representing 27 percent of the state’s total goods exports.
- Mexico was followed by Canada ($36.6 billion), Netherlands ($32.5 billion), South Korea ($23.6 billion), and China ($22.5 billion).
- Texas’s exports to major world areas included:
|
2024 Value |
APEC |
$273.4 billion |
Asia |
$122.4 billion |
European Union |
$81.5 billion |
South/Central America and Caribbean |
$56.3 billion |
Sub-Saharan Africa |
$6.3 billion |
- 51 percent of Texas’s goods exports ($231.6 billion) in 2024 went to current FTA partners.
Agriculture in Texas depends on Exports
- Texas is the country’s 6th largest agricultural exporting state, shipping $8.5 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 |
cotton |
$3.3 billion |
1 |
beef and veal |
$1.6 billion |
3 |
dairy products |
$704 million |
4 |
other plant products |
$659 million |
6 |
broiler meat |
$355 million |
5 |
International Investment Creates Jobs in Texas
- In 2022 (latest data available), foreign-controlled companies employed 695,600 Texas workers. Major sources of foreign investment in Texas included the United Kingdom, Japan and Canada.
- Foreign investment in Texas was responsible for 6.0 percent of the state's total private-industry employment in 2022.
Texas’s Major Metropolitan Areas Benefit from Exporting
In 2023 (latest data available), the following metropolitan areas in Texas recorded goods exports: Abilene ($93.9 million), Amarillo ($516.5 million), Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos ($17.3 billion), Beaumont-Port Arthur ($27.7 billion), Brownsville-Harlingen ($8 billion), College Station-Bryan ($180 million), Corpus Christi ($72.5 billion), Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington ($51.9 billion), Eagle Pass ($402.2 million), El Paso ($35.2 billion), Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands ($175.5 billion), Killeen-Temple ($190.3 million), Laredo ($11.2 billion), Longview ($462.4 million), Lubbock ($291.4 million), McAllen-Edinburg-Mission ($7.1 billion), Midland ($72.4 million), Odessa ($86.2 million), San Angelo ($320.2 million), San Antonio-New Braunfels ($12.8 billion), Sherman-Denison ($604 million), Texarkana ($321.2 million), Tyler ($162.1 million), Victoria ($108.2 million), Waco ($848.5 million), and Wichita Falls ($279.5 million).
Estimates of state exports of agricultural products by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture and goods exports by the U.S. Dept. of Commerce are based on different methodologies and are not directly comparable.