Summary. The European Union imported 5,519 tonnes of acrylic acid and its salts (HS 291611) from outside the bloc in the twelve months to August 2026, 3.4% less than a year earlier, at an average EUR 1,493 per tonne, 2.7% lower. The import book is a fraction of what it was: 14,949 tonnes in 2020 and 5,315 tonnes in 2025, a 64% fall in five years. Exports of 34,320 tonnes in the same twelve months were 8.0% lower year on year and 2.5% dearer per tonne, leaving the EU a net exporter by 28,801 tonnes. Inside a small import book the mix has moved sharply toward China, which supplied 58% of the twelve-month total and 61% of January–August 2026 imports, against 41% a year earlier. India, by contrast, imported 78,700 tonnes in 2025 — more than fourteen times the EU’s entire annual import book.
Data updated: 2026-11-06
Latest 12 months: a small book, a rising Chinese share, a Korean premium
Table 1 covers September 2025 to August 2026 for HS 291611, EU27 trade with non-EU partners, from Eurostat Comext DS-045409 (dataset refreshed 16 October 2026). Unit values are declared value divided by net mass — a border ratio, not a market price, and not a like-for-like grade comparison.
| Month | Imports (t) | Import value (EUR m) | Import unit value (EUR/t) | Exports (t) | Export value (EUR m) | Export unit value (EUR/t) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-09 | 410 | 0.63 | 1,532 | 2,213 | 2.60 | 1,173 |
| 2025-10 | 385 | 0.66 | 1,706 | 2,222 | 2.59 | 1,166 |
| 2025-11 | 375 | 0.72 | 1,928 | 1,846 | 2.23 | 1,205 |
| 2025-12 | 273 | 0.36 | 1,308 | 2,384 | 2.64 | 1,107 |
| 2026-01 | 509 | 0.68 | 1,345 | 3,014 | 3.35 | 1,112 |
| 2026-02 | 529 | 0.70 | 1,325 | 2,998 | 3.42 | 1,140 |
| 2026-03 | 320 | 0.41 | 1,271 | 3,922 | 4.00 | 1,020 |
| 2026-04 | 603 | 0.65 | 1,079 | 5,729 | 6.00 | 1,048 |
| 2026-05 | 295 | 0.41 | 1,396 | 2,211 | 2.96 | 1,338 |
| 2026-06 | 486 | 0.82 | 1,683 | 2,219 | 3.36 | 1,516 |
| 2026-07 | 637 | 1.01 | 1,578 | 3,974 | 5.33 | 1,342 |
| 2026-08 | 695 | 1.20 | 1,719 | 1,587 | 2.55 | 1,606 |
| Total | 5,519 | 8.24 | 1,493 | 34,320 | 41.03 | 1,195 |
Monthly imports ran from 273 tonnes in December 2025 to 695 tonnes in August 2026, averaging 460 tonnes. Exports were far lumpier, from 1,587 tonnes in August 2026 to 5,729 tonnes in April: single cargoes of a few thousand tonnes move the monthly print, which is why the twelve-month total is the only stable comparison here.
Analysis. The last three months of the window describe a different market from the first. In June–August 2026 the EU imported 1,818 tonnes at EUR 1,661 per tonne and exported 7,780 tonnes at EUR 1,446 — an export unit value 32% above the March–May average of EUR 1,093 and the highest since the second quarter of 2023 (EUR 1,443). Export volumes in the same three months were 7,780 tonnes against 14,475 tonnes a year earlier, but that gap is largely an artefact: June 2025 alone carried 9,163 tonnes. On July–August alone the two years are 5,561 tonnes and 5,313 tonnes, a 4.7% increase.
The import side is the cleaner signal. Imports rose 5.3% in January–August 2026 against the same months of 2025, the first year-on-year increase in that comparison since 2022, while the average import unit value fell 2.2% to EUR 1,442. A small book getting slightly larger at a slightly lower price is consistent with buyers re-testing imported material rather than with a structural return of import volumes.
The annual record: imports down 64% since 2020, exports down a third since 2021
Table 2 aggregates the same monthly series to calendar years. The 2026 column is January–August, so it is not comparable with the full years above it; the like-for-like eight-month comparison is given beneath the table.
| Period | Imports (t) | Import unit value (EUR/t) | Exports (t) | Export unit value (EUR/t) | Net balance (t) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 11,158 | 1,034 | 37,503 | 995 | +26,345 |
| 2020 | 14,949 | 1,040 | 28,074 | 919 | +13,125 |
| 2021 | 13,815 | 1,384 | 57,596 | 1,140 | +43,781 |
| 2022 | 13,523 | 2,143 | 50,189 | 1,628 | +36,666 |
| 2023 | 9,929 | 1,374 | 43,184 | 1,253 | +33,255 |
| 2024 | 6,802 | 1,443 | 41,971 | 1,216 | +35,169 |
| 2025 | 5,315 | 1,519 | 36,408 | 1,142 | +31,093 |
| 2026 (Jan–Aug) | 4,075 | 1,442 | 25,655 | 1,207 | +21,580 |
Read as eight-month blocks, the import book falls without interruption from 13,654 tonnes in January–August 2020 to 3,871 tonnes in the same months of 2025, then ticks up to 4,075 tonnes in 2026. Exports over the same eight months go from 43,995 tonnes in 2021 to 25,655 tonnes in 2026, a 42% decline, of which 7.5% happened this year.
Analysis. The 2022 column is the reason to distrust any price series built on annual averages alone. Import unit value doubled to EUR 2,143 and export unit value reached EUR 1,628, then both fell by roughly a third in 2023. Since 2023 the two prices have moved in opposite directions: the import ratio has drifted up from EUR 1,374 to EUR 1,442 while the export ratio has gone from EUR 1,253 to EUR 1,207. Europe is paying more per tonne for what it brings in and accepting less per tonne for what it sends out — the signature of a buyer base that has narrowed to specification-driven lots while the export book competes on price.
Origins: three suppliers, three price levels
Table 3 breaks the twelve-month import book down by origin, with the prior twelve months and the two eight-month blocks for comparison. Only non-EU origins are shown; intra-EU shipments are excluded from the Eurostat extra-EU aggregate.
| Origin | 2024 (t) | 2025 (t) | L12 (t) | L12 value (EUR m) | L12 unit value (EUR/t) | Prior 12M (t) | Jan–Aug 2026 (t) | Jan–Aug 2025 (t) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| China | 3,172 | 2,296 | 3,180 | 3.86 | 1,213 | 2,362 | 2,486 | 1,602 |
| Korea | 1,963 | 1,616 | 1,406 | 2.92 | 2,075 | 1,703 | 916 | 1,126 |
| Indonesia | 1,032 | 1,186 | 841 | 0.87 | 1,031 | 1,200 | 639 | 984 |
| Other non-EU | 635 | 217 | 92 | 0.60 | 6,522 | 451 | 34 | 159 |
| Total | 6,802 | 5,315 | 5,519 | 8.24 | 1,493 | 5,716 | 4,075 | 3,871 |
Three origins account for 98% of the twelve-month import book: China 3,180 tonnes, Korea 1,406 and Indonesia 841. The residual 92 tonnes is a set of small lots from Switzerland, Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom at unit values between EUR 4,515 and EUR 9,077 per tonne — specialist quantities that distort any average built on the tail.
China’s volume rose 35% year on year while Korea’s fell 17% and Indonesia’s 30%, so China’s share of the import book went from 41% in the prior twelve months to 58%, and to 61% in January–August 2026 (2,486 of 4,075 tonnes). The price gap is wide: Chinese material entered at EUR 1,213 per tonne over the twelve months, Korean at EUR 2,075 and Indonesian at EUR 1,031. Korean material carried a 71% premium over Chinese.
Analysis. The Korean premium is too large to be freight. A EUR 862 per tonne gap on 1,406 tonnes cannot be explained by a short sea leg from Busan against an ocean leg from Ningbo. The heading covers both acrylic acid and its salts, and the Eurostat partner detail cannot separate them, so the most defensible reading is a product-mix difference — a small, specification-led Korean book against a larger, commodity-led Chinese one. Buyers comparing offers across these three origins should treat the quoted unit values as different products until the grade is confirmed, not as a price spread to arbitrage.
The Indonesian number is the one that changed most. Indonesia shipped 1,032 tonnes in 2024, 1,186 in 2025 and 841 in the latest twelve months, and only 639 tonnes in January–August 2026 against 984 a year earlier. At EUR 1,031 per tonne it was the cheapest of the three origins in the twelve-month window, yet it lost volume — consistent with a buyer base that consolidates orders rather than one that chases the lowest quote.
Destinations: the UK, Türkiye and the United States take 95%
| Destination | 2024 (t) | 2025 (t) | L12 (t) | L12 value (EUR m) | L12 unit value (EUR/t) | Prior 12M (t) | Jan–Aug 2026 (t) | Jan–Aug 2025 (t) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | 19,078 | 15,782 | 15,513 | 19.22 | 1,239 | 16,542 | 10,364 | 10,633 |
| Türkiye | 9,048 | 10,634 | 9,763 | 10.04 | 1,029 | 10,878 | 6,897 | 7,768 |
| United States | 7,951 | 6,138 | 7,170 | 7.60 | 1,060 | 6,042 | 7,041 | 6,009 |
| Switzerland | 685 | 717 | 742 | 1.74 | 2,347 | 704 | 534 | 509 |
| Other non-EU | 5,209 | 3,137 | 1,132 | 2.42 | 2,143 | 3,155 | 819 | 2,824 |
| Total | 41,971 | 36,408 | 34,320 | 41.03 | 1,195 | 37,321 | 25,655 | 27,743 |
The three largest destinations took 32,446 tonnes of the 34,320-tonne twelve-month export book, or 95%. The United Kingdom alone took 45%, Türkiye 28% and the United States 21%. The United States is the only one of the three growing: 7,170 tonnes in the latest twelve months against 6,042 a year earlier, and 7,041 tonnes in January–August 2026 against 6,009 — eight months already matching the whole of 2025.
Analysis. An export book with 95% of its volume in three destinations is not diversified, whatever the tonnage says. The UK leg is a post-Brexit customs flow that did not exist as an extra-EU movement before 2021, and it has fallen every year since 2024. Türkiye has fallen 10% in the latest twelve months. The United States is now the marginal buyer that sets the direction of the total: if US intake holds at the 2026 pace, the twelve-month export total stabilises near 34,000 tonnes even with the UK and Türkiye drifting lower.
Outside Europe: India buys at fourteen times Europe’s import scale
The EU import book is small enough that comparisons outside Europe reset the scale. India imported 78,700 tonnes of HS 291611 in 2025, worth USD 75.9 million (USD 964 per tonne), according to UN Comtrade. That is 14.3 times the EU’s latest twelve-month import volume of 5,519 tonnes. India’s monthly imports in the twelve months to August 2026 ran from 4,660 tonnes in January to 8,935 tonnes in July, at unit values between USD 878 and USD 1,671 per tonne; February 2026 carried no net mass and is excluded from that range. The United States imported 17,800 tonnes in 2025 and its monthly intake in 2026 swung from 128 tonnes in March to 5,050 tonnes in May.
On the export side, the large non-EU origins reported the following volumes and values for 2025. These are declared export values per tonne at the border of the reporting country, not EU import unit values, and are not directly comparable with Table 1.
| Origin | 2024 exports (kt) | 2025 exports (kt) | 2025 value (USD m) | 2025 USD/t |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Saudi Arabia | 158.7 | 194.2 | 204.0 | 1,051 |
| Indonesia | 72.7 | 81.0 | 63.1 | 779 |
| Malaysia | 58.1 | 70.0 | 57.1 | 816 |
| Korea | 22.9 | 48.1 | 40.5 | 842 |
| Japan | 12.5 | 19.6 | 14.7 | 750 |
| Brazil | 14.1 | 9.5 | 10.8 | 1,137 |
| China | n/r | n/r | 63.2 | n/r |
China reported USD 63.2 million of exports in 2025, down from USD 94.7 million in 2024 and USD 208.2 million in 2022, but filed no net mass for 2024 or 2025, so no current volume or unit value can be computed; its 2022 record carried 129,500 tonnes at USD 1,607 per tonne. Korea’s reported exports more than doubled in volume, from 22.9 to 48.1 thousand tonnes, while Saudi Arabia added 22% to 194.2 thousand tonnes at USD 1,051 per tonne. The pattern is of Gulf and Southeast Asian volume expanding into a market where Chinese export value is contracting — a shift in who supplies the merchant market that, for China, is visible only on the value side.
Data notes and limitations
- Monthly lumpiness. EU exports of HS 291611 move in cargo-sized steps: 9,163 tonnes left in June 2025 and 5,729 tonnes in April 2026, against a twelve-month monthly average of 2,860 tonnes. Month-on-month comparisons in this heading are dominated by shipment timing.
- Unit values are border ratios. Eurostat value divided by net mass is a declared customs ratio that includes freight and insurance on imports and excludes it on exports. It is not a market price and should not be used as one.
- One heading, two products. HS 291611 covers acrylic acid and its salts. The dataset cannot separate glacial acid from salt grades, so differences between origins may be product mix rather than price.
- 2025 is first-reported. Comtrade 2025 annual records are subject to revision. China, India and several other reporters had not filed 2025 annual data at the time of writing; where a series ends, the year is stated.
- China has no monthly record. The Comtrade monthly preview returned no 2025–2026 records for China at this heading, so Chinese trade is observed here through Eurostat’s partner data and through annual values only.
- Extra-EU only. The Eurostat aggregate used throughout excludes intra-EU shipments; a German-to-French cargo does not appear in any table above.
Analysis and outlook
Analysis. The EU is a structural net exporter of acrylic acid by roughly 29,000 tonnes a year, and the balance has not flipped in any year since 2019. What changed is the size of both legs: the import book is 64% smaller than in 2020 and the export book 37% smaller than its 2021 peak. For a procurement team, the relevant consequence is liquidity, not direction. A 5,519-tonne annual import book with three origins and 460 tonnes a month is thin enough that a single buyer’s specification change moves the published average.
Outlook. Two indicators are worth watching into 2027, both visible in the tables above. First, whether China’s share of EU imports holds above 60% now that it has risen from 41% to 61% in eight months; that share was built while the total book grew only 5.3%, so it is a substitution, not a recovery. Second, whether the export unit value holds above EUR 1,400 per tonne after the June–August 2026 reading of EUR 1,446. If both persist, the European price floor is being set by export parity to the UK, Türkiye and the US rather than by import competition — and an import book this small would no longer be the marginal price-setter it was in 2020.
Sources
- Eurostat Comext DS-045409, monthly extra-EU imports of HS 291611, January 2019 to August 2026: API query, flow 1
- Eurostat Comext DS-045409, monthly extra-EU exports of HS 291611: API query, flow 2
- Eurostat Comext DS-045409, dataset entry point: EU trade since 1988 by HS
- Eurostat, international trade in goods database: database entry point
- UN Comtrade, China annual exports of HS 291611, 2025: preview API
- UN Comtrade, Saudi Arabia annual exports of HS 291611, 2025: preview API
- UN Comtrade, India monthly imports of HS 291611, August 2026: preview API
- UN Comtrade, United States monthly imports of HS 291611, August 2026: preview API
- UN Comtrade database: comtradeplus.un.org
PetroApex maintains the monthly acrylic acid panel behind this article — extra-EU volumes, declared values, unit values and origin and destination lanes for HS 291611, with India and the United States run as outside benchmarks — and can cut it to a specific origin, grade, destination or period. To request a sample report or a custom data extract, contact our research team. For the chain view, see the acrylic acid market analysis page, the n-butanol page that sets the cost of the esterification route, the upstream propylene feedstock page, and the downstream butyl acrylate trade analysis.